


seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes (doing it right)

by Mauisse_Flowers



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cassandra Pentaghast's Disgusted Noises, Fade Dreams, Gen, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Modern Girl(s) in Thedas, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Tags May Change, The Fade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-10-28 11:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mauisse_Flowers/pseuds/Mauisse_Flowers
Summary: A pair of modern Earth women end up on Thedas, you've heard it all before.The issue is one has never played a Dragon Age game in her life and is now the Inquisitor and the other just started ‘Inquisition’… the only one she’d bothered to download. Living on Thedas is turning out to be not as cracked up as Tumblr friends would have you hope. And if they don’t come up with answers to who they are fast, being blamed for the Breach may be the least of their problems…





	1. Well, Shit

**Author's Note:**

> This is cross-posted between Tumblr and here.

Anne realizes something is wrong when her glasses make her eyes hurt and puts her gaze out of focus. She pulls them off, shoving them in her red letterman jacket’s pocket, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. Beside her Elinor moans, slowly sitting up. She’s dressed in her jeans and coat, shivering from the light snowfall around them. Anne crawls over, tugging off her letterman jacket to toss over her friend.

Elinor protests a little, too disoriented to really fight it, but allows it to happen. Anne wasn’t bothered by the cold much, anyway. Her vest, long-sleeved shirt, and tank top underneath helped stave it off, too. Elinor squints her eyes at Anne, confusion clear, even as she struggles the pull the letterman jacket over her jacket, thin as the latter item was.

“Did you have elf-ears at the Ren Faire?”

Anne frowns back, getting to her knees and slowly to her feet from there. “No. They were too expensive, remember?”

“Yeah…” Elinor continues to stare and Anne reaches up to her ears. She startles at the sensation of skin far too long and thin and pointed to be her own, and yet it was. She felt the touch on her ears and it was a little worrying. “They look good on you with the hair.”

“Thanks….” Anne turns to look around them. They seem to be stuck in a crevice of some sort, and the only way out was up. There was a loud, booming voice from above. Another, weaker and female, cried out for help. It made her skin crawl. She bends to take Elinor's outstretched hand and tugs the nurse to her feet. Both rock a little, but Anne steadies them. “I think we need to go. Now.”

“Go where?” Elinor turns to look.“Towards the voices?”

“If we’re quiet enough, they might not notice we crashed their panel.”

“I don’t think this is a panel.”

The two stare at each other, aware that Elinor was right. It was nice to imagine though.

“I’ll go first.” Anne says. “Just to be safe.”

Elinor glares, putting her hands on her hips. “And why are you in charge? I’ll go first.”

“I know how to take a punch.” Anne points out. “And give one. Lemme go first.” She pauses, an edge of fear in her voice as she says, “Please.”

Elinor wants to argue but Anne had turned and is already climbing up the rock wall, slowly and carefully. Her hands turn dark with dirt, and on jagged stones on the wall Elinor sees traces of blood likely from Anne's hands. Elinor is careful to avoid the jagged stones and reminds herself to check her friend’s hands later– and rip her a new one for being so careless. She never took good care of her hands, surprising for a writer who wrote like her life depended on it.

Anne pauses just shy of the leveled ground, peeking over. She lets herself ease back, craning her neck to look down to Elinor. She puts a finger to her lips.

There’s the brief realization that Anne's upper body strength shouldn’t have allowed such a journey, and neither should have Elinor's, but they’ve made it anyway. She writes it off to Hysterical Strength and watches Anne crawl over the edge before popping back around to urge Elinor up, glancing back frequently for anyone coming back.

Elinor takes Anne's hands, allows herself to be hauled up. She collapses on Anne, pressing her face to her friend’s shoulder with a huff of exertion. Anne pats her back, still a little distracted by the way her head tilts and her jaw works, trying hard to be quiet.

Elinor peels herself off of Anne and they stand, moving to crouch behind a wall. It was a mess. Fires scattered around, the smell of charred flesh, twisted corpses screaming in agony towards the sky. They seemed to be in what was once a large building. A shadowy figure with eyes red as rubies is in the center, and an elderly woman in religious garb is held aloft. Demonic beasts and wraith-like creatures surround the duo, men in suits of armor dispersed amongst them.

“Someone!” The woman cries, weaker than the other times. “Help me! Please!”

Anne's hold on Elinor's arms tighten reflexively, smearing over the white arms of the letterman jacket. The stains would never come out. Elinor glances back and sees Anne has really, truly gone pale with shock, mouth gaping in surprise.

Elinor is prepared to ask ‘what’s wrong’ when the women once more begs for help and Elinor's heart tugs, something reckless unfurling in her. She sees the same thing in Anne, dampened by a sudden fierceness Elinor recognized when little kids were bullied or an animal was in need. The strange scent of electricity crackles and blue flickers in the green-brown gaze of her friend. Elinor doesn’t know how, but she knows Anne has her back for whatever happens next and, assured of the assistance, comes out from behind the wall.

Elinor moves into the midst of the people, Anne at her back. Her skin tingles with power that flickers off Anne's clothes and from her eyes, a warning to not come closer.

When her friend learned magic, she’d find out after this. Though seeing as Anne was Wiccan, and tended to believe in fairies and dragons, it was no surprise if the young woman did find true magic.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Elinor demands angrily, totally aware she didn’t typically have the ovaries for such stupidity.

The old woman sighs in relief and yet pain. “You must go! You must warn the others!”

“Aw, fuckin’ christ.” Anne says behind Elinor, Southern accent thickening in her worry. “This’s really happenin’.”

“There are intruders,” the shadowy figure says, waving an imposing hand. “Kill them.”

An arc of blue strikes the ground in front of Elinor, dispersing a wraith that had come from the floor and lunged at her. She falls back into Anne's hold as the tiny woman spits, feral and feline-like, “You won’t fucking touch her, you bastard!”

Elinor doesn’t remember what comes next, but there is fighting and lightning and ice. And there is a bright green light that she reaches for and Anne's distant yell of, “ELINOR! DON’T!”

The screaming has to have been hers.


	2. The Breach

Elinor wakes up hunched over, chained to the floor, arms bound in a spreader bar. Her left palm aches and when she moves it, sickly green light sputters in her palm, pain lancing up her arm. She grits her teeth in pain.

Water drips steadily from the ceiling. Cold seeps through her clothes and into the marrow of her bones. Guards are stationed around the shadowy room, watching her with pure hatred. It takes her a moment to realize Anne isn’t there, sits up, panic taking hold–

The door a yard or so away slams open, the light of a snow laden morning spilling through, sky dense with white clouds and the thatched roofs of a village. There is the sound of crying and anguish and Elinor wants to be out there, finding Anne, helping whoever was hurt—

“You.”

Her eyes snap to the tall figure in the doorway, imposing in a way the red eyed man hadn’t been. It’s a woman, dark hair cropped short in a pixie cut with some grown long to be woven into a crown around her head. Her armor looks authentic and taken well care of. The sword on her hip is deadly.

Behind her is another woman, face hidden by the lilac hood she wears. The armored woman comes around to Elinor's left, bending down to growl, “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now?”

Elinor jerks, eyes wide. Terror climbs up her throat and she thinks, _Anne. Anne. Oh god did they kill her?_

“The Conclave is destroyed.” She paces around Elinor, rage clear. Her accent is odd, a lilt of French that isn’t quite right. “Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

Tears sting Elinor's eyes at the woman’s words.

“…And the girl with you.”

She breathes out harshly, sagging in relief, bowing further. God her back would certainly be forever fucked up after this.

Then her palm is snatched up. The shock of it sends the light up, pain stealing her breath away. She gasps at the shock, nearly missing the demand, “Explain this.”

Elinor chokes back the pain, rasping, “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you ‘can’t’?” She demands, and the hooded woman is circling her now too. It’s like being in a den of wolves. “Neither could the other.”

“I don’t know what it is or how it got there!”

“You’re _lying_!” The letterman is snatched by the collar and she’s shaken, twice so hard her neck aches more than it already does, and the hooded woman pushes the armored one back.

“We need her, Cassandra.”

Elinor shakes her head, staring at them. “What is going on? What have I done?”

The hooded figure turns, staring down at her. Her voice is softer, nurturing, cajoling information from Elinor. Elinor sees no reason to lie to them.

“Do you remember what happened? How this began?”

“We…” She shakes her head. “We were in a ditch. We heard a woman asking for help. We went to help. Then there were these… these monsters… a light….” Elinor trails off, trembling, tears falling. She meets the woman’s gaze, nearly indiscernible in the dark of her hood. “She screamed my name. Is Anne alright? Please tell me she’s okay.”

“You’re friend is fine. Angry to not see you, but fine.” The woman crosses her arms, a tilt to her mouth to denote confusion. “You said there was a woman?”

“Yes.” Elinor nods, trying to remember through the pain in her hand and the fear for her friend. So much had happened… “She reached out to me. Anne told me not to. And then… ugh.” She lifts her hands to her face, pressing at her eyes.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana.” Cassandra orders. “I will take her to the rift.”

Rift… Leliana… Cassandra…

It was so familiar to Elinor, and yet so distant. Why?

Leliana disappears out the door. Cassandra moves to unchain Elinor and she sits back, looking up into the woman’s eyes. “What did happen?”

Cassandra purses her lips. Says slowly, “It would be easier to show you.”

Cassandra helps Elinor to her feet, binds her hands in rope. Elinor heads after her, slowly so her numb feet didn’t send her face first into the floor.

She is lead outside, and flinches when a shock of violent green pulses in the sky. In her palm, the green light responds in kind. Far ahead, hidden by a mountain wall, a funnel of putrid green flows into (out of?) a massive hole in the sky, where rocks are suspended in air. Even from this distance the sound of breaking and crumbling stone can be heard.

Cassandra takes a few paces forward, leaving Elinor with the guards at the door. She shifts uneasily away from them, aware of the pissed off stares from them. They truly think she did whatever that was in the sky.

“We call it the Breach.” Cassandra explains. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with every passing hour.”

Demons… God fucking dammit they were real! This shit was real! They almost died and Anne wielded lightning like fucking Thor and she took some lady’s fucking hand and woke up with a hand that glows fucking _green_.

Elinor snaps back to the conversation when Cassandra turns to her, something about explosions and the ‘Conclave’. She hunches in protectively.

“An explosion can do _that_?”

Of course it can, she thinks of ‘The Flash’ and what the Particle Accelerator did on that show.

“This one did. And unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the whole world.”

The Breach shifts, expands with a thunderous explosion of green outwards. Elinor screams as the green in her palm sparks, sending her to her knees. Tears wet her cheeks, dripping off her jaw. Cassandra drops to a knee before her, pointing at the Breach.

“Each time the Breach expands, so does your mark. It is killing you.” Elinor slowly lifts her head, finding her strength is being sapped each time the mark opens. “It may be the key to stopping this, but you haven’t much time.”

Elinor shudders, pressing her left hand down on the mark, hoping to alleviate some of the sting. She manages out, “How long has the Breach been open?”

“Three days.” Cassandra says. “We are surprised you woke up at all. Your friend was most distressed.”

Elinor lifts her gaze to meet Cassandra’s eyes. “Where’s she? My friend? You said she’s alive.”

“At the forward camp, held prisoner, but safe.” The woman looks into Elinor's eyes, searching. “She will join us once we reach there.”

Elinor exhales, knowing there isn’t much choice. The Breach would kill her, and all these people, if she did nothing. And she wanted to see for herself that Anne is okay. “I will help if I can.”

A tiny smile tugs at Cassandra’s mouth, approval clear. She stands, helps Elinor up, gently unlike the previous time.

“Good.” Elinor follows closely behind Cassandra as they walk. The people of the village stare after her, condemnation in their eyes. “They have decided your guilt. They need it.”

It was like a witch trial. And she was the witch.

“The people of Haven mourn Our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers.”

They get passed the villagers and begin to trek up the mountains. They follow a well trodden path, dark and muddy among the snow. Her shoes squelch in the mud and she wrinkles her nose in distaste, but powers on.

“It was a chance for peace between mages and templars.” Ahead is a building, scones lit on either side of the doorway. “She had brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead.”

Elinor realizes it’s a gate when it opens, revealing a bridge. The poetics Cassandra waxes about Divine Justinia fades into the background, Elinor gazing across the snowy bridge covered in barrels of foods, armor piles, people discussing battle plans and the Breach. Some pray over wrapped corpses. The opposite gate is far away, and her view of it is blocked when Cassandra comes around to cut her bindings.

“There will be a trial. I can promise little else.” She turns to go forward, urging Elinor to follow.

“Where are you taking me?” Elinor asks, rubbing feeling back into her wrists. The mark still aches, and she can see a small slit in her palm that has a sickly undertone to it. If she didn’t know better she’d think it infected the usual way and not with magic. “Besides the Breach and forward camp.”

“Your mark must be tested on something much smaller than the Breach.” Cassandra waves an arm at the stationed guards as they come closer. “Open the gate.”

They’ve barely passed the gate when her palm flares. She gasps, losing her footing. Cassandra saves her from slamming into the stone wall, holding her under the pain passes, then brushes off the jacket gently. There is concern now, a creeping realization in the warrior’s eyes that Elinor may very well be as simple and unassuming as she appears to be, if strange by her odd dressing and speech patterns.

“The pulses come faster now.” The warrior keeps going, as though unable to look Elinor in the eyes. “The larger the Breach grows, the more rift appears. We must hurry.”

“You…” Elinor slowly begins her walk forward, hesitant to run and risk what would happen should the mark flare up. “You said I survived the blast?”

“Yes.” Cassandra follows, silently urging Elinor to pick up the pace. “Those who found you said you and the other with you simply…” A hint of awe is there, saying, “Stepped out of a rift.”

Elinor snorts. “I doubt it was that simple.”

Cassandra cuts her a sharp look. “The Maker is mysterious in many ways. He must have protected you, if you truly claim you, or your friend, to not have caused this.” Her eyes shift forward.

“Nothing is ever so simple.” Elinor says. “We didn’t cause this, but I doubt who did will be easy to find.”

She’s given an appraising look, respect earned. Elinor wonders what it will be like walking around without armor or a way to protect herself, and decides that should a monster attack her then she was either fucked or going to get behind Cassandra.

“In either case, I was told a woman was behind you when you stepped out. No one knows who she was and have not seen her since.”

Cassandra continues to explain, how the valley was destroyed and the Temple of Ashes in ruins. They’ve nearly gotten across the second bridge when a gigantic boulder comes hurtling from the Breach. Elinor stumbles back, shifts to grab Cassandra and move, but it is too quick. The boulder hits the bridge, killing guards on impact and throwing her and Cassandra into the air. They slam into the bridge before the stones beneath them give way and go crashing down, hitting stones and splintered wood beams on the way down to the frozen river below.

A ringing is in her ears when she opens her eyes, head aching. She looks up, finds Cassandra is doing battle with a ghostly creature wrapped in old, dirt rags, bent inhumanly with bone-thin arms and needle-like nails. Behind the warrior, another rises from the frozen river. Elinor presses her hand to her temple and finds it wet with blood. She struggles to her feet, trying to shake off the pain.

A minor concussion probably, by the way her vision continues to swim and her stomach roils. Her palm aches, green dripping from it. Her instincts tell her to lift it and she does, pushing her pain through it. The ghostly creatures scream in agony as green surrounds them. The one Cassandra had been focused on disperses, leaving only one. Cassandra quickly moves to battle it, though it seems to have been stronger than the first.

Elinor looks around for something to throw and finds a sword. She bends down, picking it up. It’s lighter than she expected of a sword, maybe four or so pound of pure iron. She turns, feet slippery on the ice, and raises it as she closes in, swiping at the creature. Hot blood sprays across her clothes when she strikes, damaging an arm. She ducks when it turns to attack her, gives another wide swipe across it’s midsection, and Cassandra’s sword breaks through its chest before it can properly retaliate.

Wailing, it disperses in golden light. Elinor heaves, staring at the black blood on her clothes, fingers trembling on the hilt of the sword that’s tip points into the ice.

“Drop your weapon! _Now_!”

Elinor's head snaps up to Cassandra, confused. She realizes she hasn’t let go of the sword and drops it. She’s shaking like a leaf.

“I, I, I…”

Concern, anger, and fear wars on Cassandra’s face. Concern wins out and she sheaths her sword, coming closer, hands out to show she meant no harm.

“I’ve never attacked anyone before.”

Cassandra thinks on what to say, and states, something chagrined in her voice, “You will likely need to again.”

“I’d rather not.”

Cassandra frowns, sighs, and goes to dig among the debris. She pulls out a belt and scabbard, holding it to Elinor. “You must. More will attack.”

Elinor doesn’t want to take it, but Cassandra is right. She struggles to wrap the belt around her waist, to put the sword in the scabbard. She gets it eventually, and Cassandra leads them on.

There are more of the creatures Cassandra called a Shade and a few green wraiths who hide on hills and keep away from their swords. Elinor doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to describe the searing pain she felt when a Shade struck her, needle clawing  through her jackets and shirt to the soft flesh of her arm below. Her blood soaks her clothes and she mourns the letterman, knowing Anne will be sad to see it so bloody and destroyed.

They reach the rift Cassandra had alluded to a lot faster than Elinor expected, a tear in space and time made of crystalline emerald and evil probably the height of Elinor herself and just as wide, the pulse, twisting, _writhing_ glow of it making it appear larger. There are a few warriors and a magic user fighting a group of wraiths. She helps dispatch them the best she can, ducking two blows from a wraith Cassandra and her flanked, before they were all gone.

From the mess a bald man in green, the magic user Elinor notes, marches out, grabbing Elinor's wrist. She jerks, moves to pull away, something visceral in her saying to not trust him, and he thrusts her hand at the rift. All her pain and fear surges up and through her, dispelling the pain in her arm as a beam hits the rift. It fights back, writhing and screaming, before she’s thrown back into Cassandra with how quickly her wrist is released in conjunction with the rift giving in. The rift closes with a squelching pop, leaving Elinor heaving, grasping her wrist and staring at the scar in her palm.

She glares at him. “What did you do?”

“I did nothing.” He says, nodding to her. “The credit is all yours.”

Elinor's eyes narrow on him, but says nothing. “Whatever opened that Breach in the sky left that mark on your hand,” the man– _elf_ , her mind corrects upon realizing his ears are like Anne's– explains. “I theorized that the mark might be able to close rifts opened in the Breach’s wake—and I was correct.”

“Meaning the mark may be able to close the Breach.” Cassandra realizes, hope igniting in her eyes.

“Possibly,” the elven man concedes, glancing to Cassandra before focusing on Elinor once more. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”

Elinor exhales, further exhaustion setting in. “Yay.”

“Good to know.” She turns, looking at the squat man with a crossbow. “Here I thought we’d be knee deep in demons forever.”

He fixes his gloves as he comes closer, grinning good-naturedly at Elinor. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

“Anne would like you,” Elinor says, then covers her face in shame. “Christ, I’m so in shock I’m saying the first thing I think.”

He laughs. “It’s alright. I’m assuming Anne is the elf that was with you. Seems to like fighting more than stories.”

Elinor blinks at this, but remembers the angry “You won’t fucking touch her, you bastard!” and the way lightning had filled her vision, wild and blue as ocean water. Anne was usually really laid back, if a little passive-aggressive, but never violent. Unless, Elinor remembers with a sinking stomach, her friends were in trouble…

Oh no.

Elinor bites her lip, asking with no small amount of fear, “She hasn’t done anything uber stupid, has she? Anne is really sweet, I promise, she’s just really freaking protective and this is a weird as shit situation.”

Varric blinks at her language, parsing through some of the more odd bits. Then his grin turns genuine. “She hasn’t done anything to me. Or to the guards that they didn’t already deserve. Hasn’t said a word since she was separated from you and only, uh, bites,” he chuckles at his word choice, “when people get too close.”

“We have more pressing matters, Varric.” Cassandra admonishes. “We must go meet Leliana.”

“What a great idea!” Varric agrees, giving the warrior a smirk.

“Yea– Er,” Elinor looks among them, at Cassandra’s quickly souring look.

“Absolutely not.” Cassandra settles a hand on her shoulder, urging her to go ahead as she rounds on Varric with a scoff. “Your help is appreciated, Varric, but—”

“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You _need_ me.” He glances past her to Elinor, who had turned her attention to her wounded arm. She grimaces at the amount of blood, but was glad to see her clothing was helping it clot. It would be a bitch to peel off and clean later. “You can’t deny it.”

Cassandra turns away with a noise of utter disgust, marching forward. The elf gives Elinor a polite smile, motioning to himself. “My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live.”

Wary of him for how he had grabbed her without warning, she rocks back on her heels, returning the polite smile. Varric shifts on his feet, ready to go back into the fray but delighting in the small reprieve. “What he means is, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept’.”

“You know more about the mark than you let on.” Elinor carefully says, watching for a change in his expression.

His eyes light up, an eagerness to talk, but then reigns it in. He smiles ruefully. “I did study it while you slept, stabilizing it to the best of my ability. Another time I would explain.”

He turns his attention to Cassandra, stating her name. “You should know the magic involved here is unlike any I have ever seen. Your prisoner here is no mage, and the other couldn’t possibly cast such magic. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine _any_ mage having such power.”

The warrior nods, it clear she had already realized that along the way. “Understood. We must reach the forward camp quickly.”

Everyone moves to follow, Varric proudly declaring as he passes Elinor, “Bianca is excited.”

“Bianca?” Elinor keeps pace with him, allowing Cassandra and Solas to lead. “She told me her name is Cassandra.”

Varric laughs, or, more accurately, chortles. “The Seeker is named Cassandra. Bianca,” and he reaches to his back, unhitching the crossbow to show Elinor, “is this beauty.”

Elinor hops the small barricade, winces at the pain in her ankle left over from the tumble from the collapsed bridge. “You named your crossbow?”

“Of course. You don’t name your swords?”

“I just got it. Cassandra let me keep it.”

“Ah.” He looks her over again as they make their way down the steep embankment. “Explains the way you swung it like a kid with a wooden sword.”

Elinor winces. “That obvious?”

“Eh, the clothes do most of the work. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a jacket that colorful not on a noble.” He grabs her elbow to steady her when her ankle twists on the ice. “Looks like you should be in a palace or something.”

She snorts. “Yeah, no. Hospitals are more my thing. This is Anne's. I was cold and she gave it to me.” She thinks about the blood and tears and stains. “She loves this jacket. She’ll be devastated.”

“Worse things to lose.”

“True, but…” She heaves a sigh, carefully moving across the frozen water. “We’re not really _from_ here. We’re used to being in less dangerous situations.”

“This is Thedas.” He points out. “Hard to not find yourself in a dangerous situation eventually.”

The name is familiar. Annoyingly so. But Elinor doesn’t say as much. She pulls her lips into a facsimile smile. “We’re lucky like that.”

Varric looks interested, preparing to ask what she means, when there is a ghastly wail up ahead. Elinor curses, and knows for a fact she’s picked her potty mouth up from Anne. She’s said ‘fuck’ ten too many times today.

Cassandra draws her sword, running ahead to clash with another wraith. Solas removes his staff from his back and moves it in a clean arc, casting out a wave of ice towards two more as a pair of Shades charge. Varric loads Bianca and fires a clean shot into one of the wraiths Solas had hit. Elinor draws her own sword, nervous to get close to a Shade again.

“Your holding it too tight.” Varric says, not even sparing a glance to her. Cassandra ducks a blow, holding up her shield to block another, and Varric fires into the wraith. It screams and is gone in golden light. “And your hands are too close. Makes it harder to swing.”

Elinor fixes her hold, but her grip stays iron tight. He huffs. “Good enough.”

Elinor moves in, swiping when one of the two Shades left turns to her. She misses and stumbles back when it lunges at her. Solas gets the other with a strong bout of magic and it pops. Elinor ducks under the grasping, spider-like fingers of the second and thrusts her sword up into its chest as Varric fires a shot. In her ear, the Shade screams in agony before it’s gone. The wound in her upper arm aches, hot blood seeping out as her movements force the wound back open.

Her shoulders drop, sword digging into the thick ice, heaving for breath. She presses her left hand to her wounded arm, grunting at the sharp sting brought by touching the wound so carelessly.

“Shit that _hurts_.”

“Let me see.”

Solas invades her space. She takes a half-step back, then pauses at the careful way one hand has gripped her elbow, other peeling aside the fabric of her jackets and shirt with trained ease. His eyes are narrowed in calculation. It’s almost like looking in a mirror, the furrow of his brows as he assesses the damage and decides the best course of action to fix it, mind clearly working overtime.

“I do not have the mana to heal this, but I do have a potion. It should fix the worst of the damage, but you will need stitches.”

“Get me a clean needle and thread and I can do it.” Elinor says through gritted teeth as he poked at the wound. It was deeper than she had thought, the amount of blood worrying her now. It explains the increasing headache, brought on by blood loss.

Cassandra is at their side, face pinched in consternation at the ugliness on Elinor's arm. “You should have said something.”

“I didn’t realize it was so bad.” Elinor weakly protests. “I’m used to fixing other people’s wounds, not my own.”

“You are a healer?” Cassandra questions, confused. “You have not used any magic.”

“I’m a nurse. There’s a difference.” She misses Solas’s scrutinizing look, as though the word were archaic. She takes the offered vial he passes her, removing the cork. The liquid inside smells bittersweet, making her teeth ache. She swallows it in one go, choking on the harsh acidic tang left in her mouth. “Whoa, that’s like—like worse than Absinthe.”

The story of Anne and her sharing a bottle of Absinthe like a couple of dumbasses would be left in the past where it belongs, but christ if that didn’t remind her of it. She notices the warmth in her fingers and toes right after, the way it centers around her wound and aching ankle. She pulls at the tears, watching the skin glow and appear to seal itself. She’s left with a shallow wound that still weeped blood, just long and deep enough to need stitches like Solas had expected.

“I’m guessing a nurse is a type of healer.” Varric joins the conversation finally, curiosity piqued. “Where did you say you and your friend are from again?”

“I didn’t.” Elinor says.

“Just that you’re not from here.”

“Yes.”

He steps closer, asking with a friendly smile, “And where are you from?”

A warning bell sounds in her head and she turns to Cassandra, shoving the empty vial and cork into her pocket. “We should go. The Breach is getting larger every minute we stand here.”

Cassandra, having been focused on Varric’s questions, nods, pushing aside her own interests in learning about Elinor to lead them forward. She puts herself between Cassandra and Solas this time, far away from Varric in the rear. She knows he knows she’s moved herself because of his nosing into her past, and hopes he doesn’t bring it up.

They make it across the river and up a small hill with no more hindrance outside of Elinor's lack of running endurance. They begin the long trek up a flight of stairs, passing by crumbling ruins.

“So…” Varric asks. “ _Are_ you innocent?”

“Personally, I think so. But I don’t remember what happened.” Elinor huffs and puffs, reaching the top of the stairs.

“That’ll get you every time. Should have spun a story.”

“I’m not much of a on-the-fly storyteller.” Elinor snarks. “Never been my forte.”

“Hm, could always practice.”

“That is what _you_ would have done.” Cassandra tells Varric.

Her mark flares up as they reach the top and she realizes another rift is close by. She can see the distant glow of another rift and hear the low wails of more rift creatures. She looks around Cassandra and sees a greater Shade covered in rusting armor, a few regular Shades, and four wraiths. She moves to draw her sword but Varric gets in front of her.

“Why not sit this one out.” He recommends, not unkindly. “You need a little more practice and this isn’t the best place.”

“I disagree,” Solas goes on amiably, already moving to cast a spell or something of the sort. “Learning on the battlefield truly helps things sink in.”

“Not when her mark is the only way to close the Breach.” Cassandra huffs, beheading the greater Shade after several swift moves. “We can focus on training you to fight _after_ this.”

They make short work of the spirits. Cassandra urges them forward, finger to her lips to keep quiet, and it’s an odd sense of deja vu with the movement, as though she had recently seen it. There are two small hills right before the rift and a similar group of spirits. Cassandra has Varric take the right hill, motioning for Elinor to hide on the left one.

It stings to be so quickly sidelined after helping fight twice, but gets why. She was just severely wounded, without knowing, and Cassandra now has help with more fighting prowess. So she settles back on her heels, watching them dispatch the creatures. Or, she would have if Cassandra’s sword hadn’t been forced aside, leaving her with only a shield to protect herself.

Elinor is stuck in minor indecision for only a moment, glancing at Varric and Solas busy with their own fights. She jumps from the hill, running to intercept a strike from the spirit. It’s stronger than the last one, forcing her to really grip the hilt and dig her heels in, forcing herself to hold against its supernatural strength. It screams at her, leaving her ears ringing, and pulls back.

Cassandra scrambles to grab her weapon, shouting at Elinor to get out of the way. Elinor glances back at Cassandra as she shoves back with all her force and then ducks away, dropping to the ground and rolling like she’s seen in action movies. Cassandra lets out a yell and there is golden light. When she looks, the Shade is gone, Cassandra heaving in great lungfuls of air. Then she turns to glare at Elinor.

“I told you to stay on the hill, out of sight!” Cassandra grabs her arm, helping her up. “You cannot keep hurting yourself. If you get terribly wounded, or are killed—”

“Then you’ve no way to close the Breach.” Elinor finishes, just a tad irritated. She hated being relegated to scapegoat, and one that wasn’t overly useful outside of the main objective either. Elinor was the last person to ever want to fight, that was true, but she was stuck in a place where she had to fight. She couldn’t expect these people to protect her and just stand there like a sad sack. “You’ve made that quite clear. But I can’t just sit on my ass and let you die, either.”

Cassandra draws back, eyebrows reaching her hairline. Then her face sets and she prepares to say something. Solas interrupts, calling across the field, “You must close the rift before more come through!”

Elinor sheaths her sword with more aggression than probably warranted and stalks to the rift, raising her hand. She closes her eyes, focuses on all the negative feelings building within her, and forcing them out, focusing on yanking the edges of the rift closed so no one else can be harmed. It’s easier than the first time, figuring out how to cajole the rift into closing with little fight. There is that squelch again, like pulling your shoe out a particularly strong bit of mud, and the rift is closed.

A tremor of exhaustion runs through her body. She opens her eyes, surprised to find the world swaying. Elinor shakes her head, heading for the gates. Cassandra calls to the guards to open the gate and it parts, allowing them passage.

“Whatever that thing on your hand is,” Varric passes by her, patting Elinor's mid-back, “it’s useful.”

“Well done.” Solas gives her a nod of appreciation, walking instride with her but saying no more.

Cassandra leads them up to a man in religious garb, Leliana at his elbow, arguing quietly. He looks up at the sight up them, relief breaking across his face. Leliana comes around the table and in the sunlight Elinor can see her red hair cut into a bob, the sweetly carved angles of her face, and thinks it a dangerous combination for a spy.

“Chancellor Roderick, this is—”

He rudely cuts her off, relief turning into displeasure. “I know who she is.” He waves his arm at Elinor, like an interior designer waving away the wrong curtains presented to them. “As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal and her ally to Val Royeaux to face execution.”

Elinor bristles, more than a little terrified of death but even more angry that these people continued to call her and Anne criminals. Varric grabs Elinor's arms to stall her. He need not have because Cassandra beats her to punch, advancing on Chancellor Roderick with as much annoyance as her.

“‘Order me’? You are a glorified clerk! A bureaucrat!”

He scoffs. “And you a thug! A thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!”

Leliana, ever calm and quiet, says, “We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know.”

“Justinia is dead!” He argues. “We must elect a replacement and obey _her_ orders on the matter!”

“And what about the Breach?” Elinor argues. “We need to close it.”

“ _You_ brought this on us in the first place!” He turns away before Elinor can manage a response, too angry to think properly at first. “Call a retreat, Seeker, our position here is hopeless.”

“We can stop this before it is too late.”

Elinor looks away from them, scanning the area for Anne. If they wouldn’t let her talk, she had no reason to listen to them. She takes a step from the three, closer to Varric. She licks her lips, not seeing her friend in what few places to house a criminal there were. A tiny burble of panic claws its way to the surface.

_She said Anne was at the forward camp. This is the forward camp. Where are they keeping her?_

The Breach roars above them, expanding, throwing out more rifts. The entirety of her hand from elbow to fingertip feels on fire but it’s easier to manage than before, grabbing her wrist and pulling it in close to her chest. She curls over the mark as though her arm was damaged. Cassandra’s boots enter her field of vision and she looks up, meeting the Seeker’s eyes.

“How do you think we should proceed?”

“Now you’re asking my opinion?” Elinor almost rolls her eyes.

“You have the mark.”

Solas has a point, and Cassandra drives that point home, “And you are the one we must keep alive. Since we cannot agree on our own, you must.”

Elinor rubs at her eyes. This day kept getting worse and worse. She wasn’t much for battle tactics and while she could take charge but typically didn’t want to. That’s what doctors were for. She just made sure their orders didn’t fuck someone over.

She shakes her head, saying with a sigh, “We charge. If this mark keeps going, I won’t live for the trial anyway.” And wasn’t that a depression notion? It felt like she was just at a Ren Faire with Anne, enjoying shitty wine in chilly November and watching a jousting match. “Let’s finish this now.”

Cassandra must approve because she orders Leliana to gather the troops. Then she heads for the tent at the Chancellor’s back, ignoring his ominous “On your head be the consequences, Seeker”, requesting Elinor to follow. She pulls back the flap into the low-lit interior, letting Elinor enter first.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust but when she does, her heart soars. Around the table covered by a map and little rolled parchments, nestled into the corner up against the stone wall of the bridge, is her friend. The younger woman is leaned back, hands bound in her lap, head tilted back in a way that meant she was asleep. Elinor comes around the table, dropping to her knees before her friend, reaching out to pull Anne into a hug. “Anne!”

“Wait!” Cassandra warns, but it’s…

Anne jerks awake and yanks herself away before Elinor touches her, a crackle of electricity arcing along her skin at the incoming threat dissipating as quickly as it had come. She sucks in a shaky breath, watching Elinor's hurt expression. Anne sits up, staring at Elinor.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No!” Elinor then properly pulls Anne into a hug, made awkward by the younger woman’s bound wrists. Anne melts into it, pressing her face to Elinor's neck. Hot tears dampen her skin and she holds Anne closer. “Holy shit, I thought you were dead. When I woke up and you weren’t there…”

“I’m sorry,” Anne apologizes. “They wouldn’t let me go with. When they started to take you I… I fought them too much.”

“Oh, Anne.” Elinor sits back, gazing at her friend. She looked utterly exhausted, a darkness under her eyes not typically found there, shoulders taunt. Her shirt and vest were dirtied by mud and soot, face and neck no better. There was a bruise bloomed on her forehead dark purple and clearly painful, a cut running over it, where a sword hilt had to have struck her down. Elinor touches it very gently, sucking in a breath. “Your lucky to not have a concussion. This is huge.”

“I had a raging headache and issues focusing the first day, so I might have.”

Elinor helps Anne up, taking a knife offered from Cassandra to cut the ropes. She runs her hands down Anne arms and sides, checking for more bruising or wounds. She doesn’t find anything pressing and sighs in relief. Anne carefully rubs her wrists, getting feeling back.

Anne finally focuses on Elinor, smile brittle.“I was terrified they’d put me under Tranquil for not talking.”

“Tranquil?”

Anne's mouth opens, horrified realization in her gaze. Then she looks to Cassandra who watches them, listening just as intently. Anne schools her expression into something much more calm and dips her head in deference to the woman. “Seeker Pentaghast.”

“So you do know of me.” Cassandra says, gaze curious.

“Many have heard of you.” Anne says. Elinor keeps her mouth shut, realizing there is more to what is going on than she knows. When she gets a chance, Anne will explain. “Even those who have no place to call home.”

Cassandra mulls this over, then gives her a nod of acceptance. “Your friend has spoken strongly of you. I hope you are as trustworthy as she.”

“We didn’t do this.” Anne says, hands clenching, shoulders taunt. “I’ve heard every word Chancellor Roderick has said and it’s not our fault. I remember very little before your men attacked us, but I know…” Anne shakes her head. “It’s useless arguing our case. You won’t believe us unless there’s proof.”

“You have already had one person vouch for your collective innocence.” Cassandra slowly reveals, watching Anne like a hawk. There is so little trust in her eyes as she looks at Anne it makes Elinor defensive for her. “Two for you, in particular.”

“We need to go.” Elinor breaks in, stepping partially in front of Anne. “The Breach is getting bigger.”

Anne grabs her hand, looking up into Elinor's eyes. “You’ll be okay.”

Elinor holds Anne's hand in both of hers. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

“We won’t let any more people die, either.”

“And I’m not worried about them.”

Anne blinks in surprise, opens her mouth, but seems she doesn’t have a response. Her eyes look wet and she sniffles. Then she chokes, “I love you, too.”

Elinor pulls her into another hug and Anne melts. Anne always melts when friends give her a hug. She’s seen her lift Stacey clear off the ground in delight from being bear hugged. But this time it’s different. It’s like tension is finally seeping out of her shoulders, dispersing because the situation suddenly feels easier. It really isn’t easier, but it feels that way and that’s what matters.

They break apart and Cassandra leads them from the tent. They meet up at the gates to exit the bridge, the remaining troops already gone ahead to clear the way. Solas looks them over, makes eye contact with Anne, then dismisses her. Varric on the other hand introduces himself.

Her eyes light up when he gives his name. “I’ve heard of your books! I have quite a few of my own, up in here,” she taps her mind, “if you ever want to talk.”

There’s a bit of pleasant surprise in his eyes, glancing at Elinor briefly. Elinor merely smirks, also dreading the moment the two take over any conversation with the sharing of their own stories and ideas. Any plans would be derailed thanks to them, she had no doubt.

“While this is all good, we must get going.” Cassandra says, then narrows her eyes on Anne. “You have no staff…”

Her friend presses her lips flat, a blip of concern in her eyes. Elinor has no idea why Anne needs a staff, but by Varric’s look it is important she have one. And if Solas was a mage like her, the way he’d been twirling and swinging his staff earlier implied it was important to channeling magic.

“I should be fine without it for now.” Anne assures after a moment. “I have a strong enough rein on my magic that a few fights shouldn’t hinder me.”

“I have no lyrium to spare for you, apostate.” Cassandra warns. “If you drain your magic, you will have no protection.”

Anne's jaw clenches imperceptibly, corner of her mouth twisting like she’d licked a lemon. Her eyes are sharper than when she’s hyper-focused, as though she’d suddenly found herself challenged and unwilling to back down. Rare seeing as she hated being confronted.

“I will be fine.” Her tone is frosty, and the chill in the air seems to descend a few degrees. “If I die, I’ll walk it off.”

Varric coughs to cover his laughter. “Someone’s got spunk.”

Anne grins, a small chuckle bubbling up her throat. Elinor watches her light up a little, saying, “If we end up friends, Varric, you should know that between Elinor and I, I’m the one who thinks jumping off a waterfall in winter is fun. While naked. I’ll talk the hair off your chest if you’re not careful.”

Elinor rubs her face as Varric barks with laughter, a deep and rustic sound, herself groaning at the memory of Anne skinny dipping. Stacey had sent her the video, the way Anne had come flying from the trees and bushes as a pale blur of insanity topped by ashen hair and then jumped, curling into a ball before splashing. She’d wiped out Bailey, who had been in a bathing suit like a semi-normal person. Stacey, the only sane one, had refused to get in. Somehow neither Bailey or Anne had gotten sick despite having to walk back to their camp soaking wet. “I _still_ think you’re an idiot.”

“But I’m _your_ idiot.” Anne hums as Cassandra gives up waiting and heads forward. Elinor notices Varric’s even more delighted look at their brief exchange but dismisses it as Varric thinking their friendship weirdly cute, which it was.

The friends stick together as they hike up the steep hills, slogging through heavy snow. It’s easier to handle the cold with the layers she has on, and can see Anne's lips has a slight discoloration to them the longer they’re in the cold. At a leveling point in the incline, Elinor stops to pull off Anne's letterman, stopped by Anne herself.

“You’re cold.” Elinor points out, and there’s a spark of challenge in Anne's gaze, a tiny crackle of blue lightning in them. The slight discoloration of her mouth eases, as though Anne has cast a spell to help herself.

“I’m fine. You’re the human.” Anne nudges her ahead. “Keep going.”

“You can just as easily die of hypothermia.” Elinor huffs, but gives in. Cassandra gives Elinor a helping hand when she sticks in the snow, near lifting the nurse clear out of it to set in front of her. Cassandra now at her back, a guiding force and needed push to keep her going up the mountain is helpful, but it sucks to not have Anne to talk to. She can vaguely hear Solas’s and Anne's conversation, and Varric’s addition.

“I am sure you have a warming spell or two to keep yourself from dying.” Solas says, an almost condescending hint to his tone.

She doesn’t think she’s ever heard such vitriol from Anne, however. “You’ll have to excuse me, then, since I’ve only had my magic for three days.”

“From what the guards who found you say, you nearly fried one of them. Doesn’t seem like something a new mage could do automatically.”

Anne gives an abashed laugh but her actual response is too soft to be heard, taken by the mountain wind before it reaches her. A small part of herself knows the response is a lie, as much of everything else Anne has told these people has been, finely blended with truths to deter them. Whatever Anne tells Varric, beyond the bare minimum, is a lie. Whether he knows it or not, she’ll likely never know. But she knows it’s going to be one of many told today.

Cassandra grabs Elinor's arm to stop her as they finally hit solid ground, frozen by the frigid winter wind and high altitude. Her ears have a dull thrum from the altitude they’ve all reached, her nose stings and tickles with the preparation to start dripping snot. Knows from the cattish sneeze somewhere behind her that Anne's ears have popped. Up ahead, faint thanks to the wind, Elinor can hear the faint crying and wailing of spirits. A tiny tremor runs down her spine, but Cassandra has easily moved in front of Elinor and Anne has moved too, setting herself between her friend and danger.

Varric moves to find higher ground and Solas casts a silent spell, warmth growing inside Elinor as a faint blue shimmer glows along her skin and clothes. Anne turns to her, grabbing her closest hand. Elinor notices that, of the two of them, Elinor's hands are dirtier, caked in black blood and dirt, smeared by melting snow dampening the dried blood. Anne's are little better, but there is a distinct lack of recent use.

That would change shortly.

Anne squeezes her hand, a tiny pressure against the green mark the Breach had seen fit to give her. Then she gives Elinor a forehead kiss and a soft, “Stay out of the way,” then rushes to follow the other four, electricity sparking in her palms now.

They make short work of what creatures there are. Solas deals ice damage to whatever comes his way or notices Elinor, careful to dodge or simply… step through them. It’s hard to describe the way he is one place then another without even an eyeblink, the wraith or shade turning rigid with ice. Anne, on the other hand, is all lightning, quick on her toes and hair bristling with the crackling static produced by her power. Once, but only once, she takes a hit against her chest from a wraith and in retaliation grabs its spider-leg hands, not releasing even as it screams in her face and thrashes until it bursts in black blood and golden light.

Varric is found quickly in his vantage spot, but it doesn’t make each bolt from Bianca less fierce, less damaging. His steps are sturdy, holding his ground with any hit he takes and pushing forward. There’s a furrow to his brow, but a easy smile and movement to his gait, trusting the others to have his back. Cassandra is pure brawler, one who’s found a sword and realizes its uses are infinitely more killer than just her fists. Each swipe is at full strength, taunting whatever she’s battling, but there isn’t a smile, just a firm set to her jaw, eyes hard with a gleam of adrenaline.

Anne returns to her first, and Elinor doesn’t realize she’s been biting her thumb nail in worry until she’s grabbed Anne, demanding she stop pulling back so Elinor can check her. She pats Anne's sides down, looks in her eyes, in her mouth for blood, then demands her pain scale.

“Jesus Christ, I’m _fine_.” Anne says, laughing.

“I saw it hit you! One of your lungs could have collapsed, or a rib could be bruised, cracked, or broken!”

“And I’m fine, I promise.” Anne wraps her in a hug, squeezing a little. “Solas’s shield was still up. It was like bumping me. None of us are hurt.”

“Shield?” Elinor echoes softly, confused and so, so fearful suddenly. A physical strike up close that left marks behind was one thing, something she could treat, but internal injuries were nigh impossible without the necessary equipment. And this place- this world- was terrifyingly behind.

“The blue sparkle.” Anne elaborates. “The warmth in your chest. A shield to protect against long ranged attacks and some up close ones.”

Elinor stares at Anne, watches the calm acceptance dip into concern. She asks, softly, “Elinor?”

“I feel so lost suddenly.” She admits, trailing off. “What is going on…?”

Anne shifts, wrapping one arm around Elinor's waist, and tugging her to follow. It’s awkward with Anne being a few inches shorter, but it’s pleasant to suddenly not be the somewhat leader.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you home,” Anne whispers, and Anne wasn’t a person who should be able to whisper. She was a boisterous person, who’s voice rose and rose in excitement until someone asked her to chill out. “And I’ll explain later.”

Elinor nods, looking over everyone, checking for marks or bumps or gingerly held extremities. There aren’t any except a scratch with a few beads of blood above Cassandra’s eyebrow. Elinor didn’t need to fix that.

“Done fondling your _friend_?” Varric asks, making Anne choke on a laugh and Elinor's face turn pink.

“I, I wasn’t _fondling_ her!” Elinor yelps. “I was checking for injuries! I can check you all, if you’d like.” She backpedals. “But she said Solas put up a shield and you dealt with the spirits before it fell so I don’t need to.”

“I think I’m good.” Varric shakes his head, turning to keep walking.

Cassandra gives Elinor a cursory glance, as though checking to make sure she was safe, then a brief glance at Anne. The shorter woman looked strong and hale, returning Cassandra’s look. She gives a single nod and follows after Varric, Solas trailing without checking on them.

Elinor looks at Anne, who glares at Solas’s back. “Hey.”

Anne snaps her gaze to Elinor, glare turning into a smile, humming.

“You might light him on fire, glaring like that.”

“I don’t have the intent backing it.” Anne says with an odd chill in her voice, dry and brittle as mid-winter. “And we need him, as much as I wish we didn’t.”

Anne starts walking, now holding Elinor's hand. She makes sure to keep a step ahead of Elinor, always scanning the place. Which Elinor knew would lessen once she felt they were safe, if that were plausible in this situation.

Or she’d thought her friend’s worry would lessen.

They finally reach the rest of the troops, passing burning carts and dead bodies. They round the bend to a set of stairs just as, up ahead, a falling boulder covered in green from the Breach strikes a man and kills him, throwing his corpse down several stairs. She gasps, covering her mouth. Anne's hand in hers squeezes in comfort, pulling her along.

Ahead comes the sound of fighting and Anne drops Elinor's hand, more lightning crackling in hands, lacing her fingers. Anne's doesn’t tell Elinor to stay back, just runs ahead and up the second stairs, passed the dead man. She disappears over a small drop and Elinor follows, watching her friend jump right into the thick of the mess, using her magic like she’d had it her entire life.

Elinor looks past the fighting to the rift where demons poured out and crouches down, lifting herself down the small drop. Immediately an armored greater Shade turns to her and she grabs the hilt of her sword, pulling it from its sheath. It lungs and she manages to parry it’s hit, kicks out on instinct so it falls back. She swings, taking its arm off in a clean hit.

She doesn’t see the second Shade coming up on her back, but does see the big, burly blond guy charging her way. She yelps at his advance, falling backwards in time to see him take out the lesser Shade in three quick, fluid moves. And then blue lightning obliterates the greater Shade.

“Elinor!” Anne yells, locked in combat with Solas against a weird wendigo-ish skeleton monster. “The rift!”

“R-right!”

The blond grabs her elbow, helping her up. She gives him a stumbling “thanks” and runs across the makeshift battlefield. Cassandra beheads her wendigo skeleton and Solas shatters the other, the bleach-white bone remains flying across the area. She throws her hand up, pulling on the edges as she has before, yanking it closed even as it fought against her. It closes quicker than the other two, snapping shut with what sounded almost like a snarl.

Elinor manages to keep her footing, heaving, even as her hand goes numb. Solas walks close, looking amazed. “Sealed, as before. You are becoming quite proficient at this.”

“Thanks?” She shakes her hand hard until feeling returns, wiggling her fingers.

“Let’s hope it works on the big one,” Varric comes up, eyeing her hand and its wiggling fingers. “You okay?”

“I think using the mark so much is damaging the nerves.” Elinor observes, subdued, cradling her left hand. It was hard to imagine this as an elaborate dream when the pain all felt so real, the snow cool on her cheeks, the heat of fire and lightning so real. “It might also be the Breach growing.”

“Hm,” Solas steps closer, eyeing her hand. He reaches to take it and then finds himself blocked by Anne, taking Elinor's hand gently. Frustration briefly flashes in the elf’s blue gaze, washed away a second later to chilly calm. He heads over to Cassandra and the blond man conversing.

“Want me to massage it?” Anne asks, already pressing deep circles into the back of Elinor's hand, relieving what pain was starting to return. “You might be straining the tendons, like a painter or sketcher.”

“Sure.”

Varric comes closer in curiosity, watching as Anne proceeds to spend a minute or two easing the tension and bringing back further feeling in her fingers, careful in her approach around the mark. She smiles at Elinor's palm, running along Elinor's lifeline before releasing her hand. “At least _that_ wasn’t affected. Still got a lot of years of achievements ahead.”

“What does the palm crease have to do with years left to live?” Varric questions.

“Palmistry.” Anne explains. “The line I pointed out is your lifeline. There are others, like your love line, destiny, head, and a few others. Maybe after this, I’ll read your palm. Tell you something about your future.”

Varric snorts. “Don’t think I need a fortune teller telling me my future.”

“Not a fortune teller if it’s free.” Anne remarks and Elinor bites the inside of her cheek at his look, eyes wide and mouth parted. “It’s just a fun pastime.”

He quirks a brow. “Sounds like you got a lot of those.”

Anne shrugs, pulling Elinor to Cassandra, Solas, and the man. Varric trails, further intrigued by the weird elf and human.

They enter the conversation near the end, catching Cassandra calling the man ‘commander.’ Anne lights up beside her, recognition in her eyes. Elinor really wants an explanation to everything going on, but is also just really glad to have people willing to keep her alive while she figures it all out.

“I hope they’re right about you.” Elinor looks to the commander, trying not to show she didn’t catch half of what he said. “We’ve lost a lot of good men getting you here.”

“Uhm,” Elinor flounders, “I mean, I’m not much of a fighter. I’m doing what I can, though.”

She misses Anne's wince, but the commander seems to take it in stride. “That’s all we can ask.”

He turns back to Cassandra and she exhales, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. Anne takes her hand again, squeezing in comfort. Elinor relaxes a fraction.

“Maker watch over you— for all our sakes.”

“Christ, that sounds fatalistic as fuck.” Elinor mutters as the commander and his men go back the way they’d come, the man even helping one of his men with a heavy limp and injured side go. Elinor was tempted to stop them, check the wounded, and then head forward. It would be better, making sure no one else died but…

“We need to go, Eli.” Anne says, and tugs her friend forward, to another drop.

Elinor pauses at the edge, staring at what lays ahead. Charred, twisted remains, some still flaming, all screaming in agony towards the sky. Melted stone, crumbling walls. And the stench. Burning hair mixing with the smell of cooked fat and flesh. No snow lays on the ground, the flames too hot. A breeze blows by, ruffling her hair, and her stomach rolls when she’s hit full force by the stench.

She presses her hand to her mouth as bile rises in her stomach, reminding her she hasn’t eaten in three days and is running on pure adrenaline. Her legs give out as her body heaves all that’s left in her stomach, stomach acid and water splashes over the ground. Anne pulls her hair away, humming what sounded like “You’ll Be In My Heart”, rubbing her back in slow, wide circles.

She wishes she had her friend’s iron stomach right now, wishes she could be immune to what she’s seeing like the others. They’ve had time to come to grips with what lies ahead, and Elinor has been awake barely two hours.

Anne pulls her up, leaning Elinor's weight on her once her heaves has passed, still rubbing her back, still humming that damn Disney song. Elinor grabs her friend’s shirt, bunching it into her fists, burrowing close and breathing in her sweat and the smell that came with the living. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I really doubt she did this, Seeker,” Elinor hears Varric tell the warrior. “Not even a really good actress can throw up on command.”

“No, they cannot.” Cassandra agrees solemnly.

When Elinor manages to pull herself together and pull back, she sees how pale Anne is, cheeks tinged green with her own unease. Anne gives her a strong smile, patting her neck. “You good?”

“No.” Elinor swallows, suddenly exhausted. “All these people are dead. They died in agony. And there’s so many bodies, Anne. All these people are—”

Anne leans uncomfortably close, staring her in the eyes, palms cupping Elinor's cheeks. Elinor can see tears, the way she was suppressing her own anguish at the sight. “Do not think about that, got that? I don’t giva fuck what happened here, not right now. They’re somewhere better now. But we’re here.” She knocks their heads together, enough to hurt. “We’ve got demons to stop, a rift to close, and our names to clear. Then we’ll mourn.” When Elinor doesn’t say or do anything, Anne demands, “Got it?”

Elinor sniffles, nods, and Anne settles back on her hunches. “Good. Get up. Every second we wait, that mark gets bigger and I’ve no intention of you dying, dammit. I love you.”

Anne stands, helping Elinor up. Anne looks the other three in the eyes, daring them to say anything, then hops over the edge. Solas and Varric follow. Anne helps Elinor down before Cassandra joins them. They make their way over what may have once been the entry hall for the Temple of Sacred Ashes, down into a still-standing alcove.

Green washes over them as they come out on a balcony, looking up at a huge rift. It was easily the size of a bus. But it looked… wrong. Crystalline shards poked out at angles different from the other three rifts, light struggling to pass through. It was definitely going to be a bitch to close. Further up, far out of the realm of reaching without some form of flight, is the Breach, choking and sputtering out rifts at steady intervals.

“So… if I _did_ die,” Elinor manages weakly in the face of the two openings to another world, “you’d learn necromancy and bring me back?”

“Wouldn’t need to. My anger at you being stupid enough to die, and my for letting you, would bring you back.”

Elinor laughs weakly. “Oh, nice.”

“You’re here! Thank the Maker!”

Elinor whips around, watching Leliana run up, men at her back. Soots and grime was on her cheeks and dulling her hood, but she didn’t look any worse for wear. Cassandra immediately jumps into commander mode, having the men leave to find places to hold around the ruined temple. Leliana goes to talk with her men, leaving Cassandra free to address Elinor.

“This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?”

Elinor takes a deep breath, looking up at the Breach and the odd rift before them. “You’ve got a plan for this, right? That’s pretty damn high.”

“No.” Solas focuses on the rift. “This rift is the first and it is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.”

“That sounds fake, but okay.”

What Elinor was going to dub ‘Solas’s Bitch Face’ made a brief appearance, a mix of confusion, consternation, and pure vexation from dealing with two weird women. Lucky for him, Cassandra thinks it a good plan and orders them to head down into the center of the temple ruins. Leliana rejoins them as they head down.

There are less bodies where they walk, but plenty of fires and rubble. And… green stuff, glowing along the walls. Elinor assumes its from the Breach.

_“Bring forth the sacrifice.”_

“What are we hearing?” Cassandra demands.

“At a guess: the person who created the Breach.”

 _No kidding_. Elinor recognizes the voice, chills clawing down her spine. Anne, sensing Elinor's rising fear, grabs her hand.

And then she sees a low, red glow ahead, breaking up the green. Anne tenses beside her, saying with a hint of panic. “Don’t get near that shit.”

“What? What is it?”

“That’s red lyrium,” Varric explains, his own hint of panic clear. “You seeing this, Seeker?” Cassandra confirms, brows pinching together. “What’s it _doing_ here?”

Elinor hears singing, a faint sound that makes her both want to get closer to the red lyrium and run the opposite direction. Anne yanks her to her other side, closer to the balcony and away from the red lyrium.

“Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it.”

“Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

_“Keep the sacrifice still.”_

“Anne…” Elinor whispers, unsure. “I recognize that voice.”

Oddly steady, and visage set in determination, the human-turned-elf says, “Same.”

They comes down the steps, taking two at a time. An older voice speaks up, panicked, begging for help. Elinor's skin crawls, her mind itching, trying to remind her of something. Anne's hand in hers squeezes, grounding her in the moment.

They jump over the drop together, looking at the rift. Elinor's hand pulses with pain, green sparking along her hand. She lifts it, surprised at the way the pain quickly fades, leaving behind a numbness that wasn’t good.

_“Someone help me!”_

And then the strangest thing happened: Elinor heard her voice. It echoed, too loud and too sure of itself. But it was Elinor's voice, demanding to know what the fuck was going on. Elinor looks up at the rift, eyes wide.

“That was your voice.” Elinor looks to Cassandra, trying to orient herself in what was happening. “Most Holy called out to you. But—”

Her response is lost by the rift giving a burst of energy, spreading over the area. A dark shadow rises up from where the rift is, crouching over an elderly woman in robes, bounding by red smoke. She _recognized_ that woman, knew she’d seen her before.

Then herself, a copy of her with a green hue, comes from the edge, Anne just behind her, terror on her face. The woman- Divine Justinia- begs them to leave, to ‘warn them.’ It’s a surreal amount of deja vu to be subject to, lucky to have someone to hold on to as this plays out.

 _“Aw, fuckin’ christ.”_ Anne's copy says, sounding as she has the past hour or so. _“This’s really happenin’.”_

 _“There are intruders,”_ the shadowy figure says, waving an imposing hand. _“Kill them.”_

Right before the strange replay ends, there is a shock of lightning and memory Elinor falls into memory Anne's hold as the tiny woman spits, feral and feline-like, _“You won’t fucking touch her, you bastard!”_

The memory bursts, popping like a soap bubble. Cassandra grabs Elinor, turning her to face her. “You were there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was the vision true? What are we seeing?”

Elinor shakes her head, gaping at Cassandra. Anne pulls her out of the warrior’s hold, saying, “Leave her alone! She’s doesn’t remember!”

“But _you_ do.” Cassandra says, and Anne takes a half-step back, eyes blowing wide in confusion. “Do you not?”

Anne opens her mouth, a lie on her tongue, but Solas speaks, calm in the face of Cassandra’s tempest of emotion.

“Echoes of what happened here. The Fade bleeds into this place.” Cassandra turns away, heading for Solas. He held answers they didn’t have, and Anne exhales heavily. She looks up at Elinor, searching her face, then follows. Elinor trails, a well of confusion and anger beginning to grow in her.

Anne _did_ remember. She knew what was going on and wasn’t saying anything. Why wasn’t she explaining anything?

“The rift is not sealed, but it is closed. Albeit temporarily.” Solas plants his staff in the ground, eyeing Anne curiously then focusing on Elinor. “I believe that with the mark, the rift can be opened and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”

Cassandra debates this, then nods, shouting to those stationed around the temple, “That means demons! Stand ready.”

“I dunno if I can open it.” Elinor says. “I can barely close them.”

“You can.” Anne assures. She gives her a kiss on the cheek and moves away, summoning her magic. Cassandra meets Elinor's gaze when she seeks another person for assurance, and when the warrior nods she feels a little better.

Cassandra narrows her eyes on Anne. “You and I will be talking after this.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” Anne replies. “Let’s just focus on not dying first, yeah?”

Cassandra acquiesces to this.

Elinor turns to rift, holding her hand out. She focuses on the rift, squeezing her eyes shut. She can feel where the openings are, like popped seams on an old pair of jeans. She could shut them, definitely. It would happen with a lot of fighting, but they wouldn’t have to fight whatever came out of the rift if she forced the seams closed.

Solas said reopening it would allow them to close it safely, though. Meaning this wasn’t safe, maybe even if she forced the openings closed. The threat of it staying open would remain.

So she clenches her right hand at her side, imagines taking hold of the rift on either side, and yanks it apart with all her strength. Like a buttoned shirt, it bursts open, throwing out bursts of fade magic. And in the center just a few meters away, becoming corporeal with a roar, is what looks like if a dragon mated with a komodo dragon and a tiefling, taking after the former. Elinor falls back, reaching to grab her sword as Cassandra bellow, “Now!”

“You need to disrupt the rift for hits to affect it,” Anne yells to Elinor, right before she gives an inventive string of curses bound to make a sailor blush as the demon wields a lightning whip and strikes at Leliana, Anne, and Varric, tacking at the end, “Fuck! It’s immune to lightning!”

“Apt assessment,” Solas calls, slinging ice spells left and right. “Have you figured out how to harness winter magic yet?”

“Clearly not!”

Elinor ducks a swipe from the demon, holding out the mark and trying to yank the damn rift closed. It fights her every step, and it retaliation the damn thing spits out two Shades and a wendigo wanna-be. Varric and Anne come to help her take the three demons out, Anne's magic useless on the large demon.

“You and I are having,” Elinor rams her sword through the wendigo cousin, it blasting apart, “ _words_ after this! I need an explanation!”

“You and me both!” Anne agrees, a little too cheerfully as she causes her Shade to explode. She is spattered in black blood now, hair sticking to her head, clothing in a sad state of distress likely to never be fixed after this. Her old sneakers were beyond saving, but they weren’t build for fighting monsters anyway. Elinor could feel bones pressing into the soles of her feet when she stepped on the wendigo’s remains.

“We should focus on that Pride demon.” Varric advises.

“Sure, when I figure out how to be Elsa.” Anne snarks, wit harsher when stressed.

Elinor huffs. “That makes me Anna, right?”

Anne is glaring at her hands, likely thinking _ice, ice baby_ in the hopes it’ll summon what she needs to fight. “Super strength, hits an attacking wolf with a guitar? Yep. Personally you’re more Mulan, though. Honor to us all, and such.”

“Aww,” Elinor begins to mess with the rift again as Anne crows at the snowball forming in her hand, “thanks.”

Elinor loses sight of Anne in the chaos of more Shades, a wraith, and a greater Shade, but can hear her cursing and taunting. Elinor keeps herself focused on the rift and anything that comes out of it, trusting everyone to deal with the Pride demon.

The ground trembles with every step the Pride demon makes, rattling her bones and giving her reason to set her feet. The fight can’t actually last more than half an hour, but it feels like a year before Elinor can feel the rift finally giving under her pull, can see the Pride demon slowing down.

She sees Anne, heaving, sweat along her face and neck, damping her underarms and chest, clearly exhausted and likely scraping the edges of her magic reserves. She gathers a glowing blue ball in her hand and lobs it at the Pride demon. It wails, a shriek that rattled Elinor's teeth, and turns. It’s eyes settle on her friend and she can see the alarm, the sudden and all consuming fear as Anne back pedals, its ire focused directly on her and something to be afraid of.

Elinor moves, a stumbling half-step to Anne's scared tumble backwards. The Pride demon swings his clawed fist, and she’s just gone. Her head snaps to where she hears her friend choke and scream, hitting the wall, then falling down in a heap.

“ _Anne!_ ”

Rage and panic flows over in her, narrowing her mind. She turns to the rift, holding her mark to it. It fights her, the last of its strength depleting under her unrelenting assault.

“You will close.” She commands the rift, stepping closer to the rift.

Somewhere behind her, Varric is at Anne's side, checking her pulse and tipping a healing potion into her mouth. Elsewhere, Leliana, Solas, and Cassandra with their men have pinned the Pride demon.

She can hear the rift whine, feel it creeping up her arms, trying to pull her in as its final bid at survival. She digs her heels in, grits her teeth, and says once more, “ _You will close to my_ **_will_ ** _!_ ”

There’s a shrieking explosion of green, her feet coming out from under her. Utter exhaustion consumes Elinor's mind and her vision goes dark.


	3. Interlude in Anne's POV

Anne has been awake in the Chantry all of thirty minutes, wrapped in places she wasn’t aware could ache, before Cassandra comes to speak with her. Elinor is on the bed next to her, feverish and tossing, but she will live. Anne knows this as she knows her name.

Cassandra stands, arms crossed, looking Anne over. The wound on her head is finally wrapped, right forearm carefully washed and sewn closed before wrapped. Bruises and cuts abounded across her shoulders and collarbone. There are layers and layers of wrappings underneath her shirt to help with a gash in her side no healing spell or potion could fix and keep her from moving her sides as her bruised ribs tried to heal. Her left ankle hurt something fierce and was splinted. If Anne was honest, it wasn’t the worst she’d ever felt but that was neither here nor there.

“As far as I am concerned, you and your friend proved your innocence today.” Cassandra says by way of greeting.

Its dizzying to know this had all happened within a day. Anne can barely believe she’s been here three days, and has another three before she can tell Elinor anything. What will she do those three days?

“And while I believe you are innocent…”

“You don’t believe I know nothing.” Anne finishes, meeting Cassandra’s eyes.

They really were pretty eyes and Anne had always been a sucker for women much taller than her. It sucked Cassandra wasn’t bisexual so she could try and woo her.

Anne huffs, rubbing down her face. Whoever had tended to her and changed her into the loose cotton shirt and breeches she wore had been kind enough to wash her too, even cleaning the demon blood from under her nails.

“I remember more than her.” Anne confirms after a long moment, weaving a lie here and now. She’d always rolled high in charisma checks in DnD, and there was a reason she was a writer. Stories were lies told to entertain the masses. “We were at the Conclave, yes. I was curious to know what was going on and convinced her to go. If I’d known some wack job was gonna blow the place up and kill Divine Justinia, we’d have stayed away. And I’ve never been happier I needed to pee so badly in my life. When we woke up in a ditch, hearing that guy talking…god, I’d wished it was a dream.”

“She said you are not from here, and you have confirmed this.” Cassandra watches Anne like a hawk for tells. “Where are you from?”

Anne had never learned her tells, had never taught herself to hide them. But she was a natural fidgeter when forced to sit still on a bed, so hams it up. She makes sure to keep her eyes trained right between the Seeker’s eyebrows, only looking away when shifting to get comfortable.

“I doubt you’d find this true, but I don’t actually know. My mother left her Clan when she fell pregnant with me, a half-human child, and refused to get an abortion.” Anne scoffs, begs Brighid and the Dagda that was she’s saying would sound real enough to pass for Dalish customs. “She met Elinor's parents in her travels. They lived in the woods, minded their own business. They let Mom stay and I was raised with Elinor. I think we were in Ferelden.” She slows, rubs her eyes in true tiredness and in the way one relieving painful memories did. She focuses on all the people Elinor and her were leaving behind on Earth to make her voice crack right. “Some fucking bandits, of all things, killed our parents. Mom died giving us a chance to get away. We’ve been wandering since– what? I’m 23, so about ten years.”

“That is a long time to travel and never learn to defend yourself.” Cassandra narrows her eyes.

“Never needed to. Stayed off the roads when needed, picked up odd jobs in cities that kept us safe.” Anne shrugs. “You can even ask her when she wakes.”

“Not if?” Cassandra raises her eyebrow.

“She’ll wake up. Too stubborn not to.” Anne looks over at Elinor, grinning tiredly. She reaches across the divide to take Elinor's hand. Whoever had tended them had put their beds closer together. She wondered if it was at someone’s behest or their own decision. Either way she was glad they had. “I just hope that damn mark stays the size it is.”

She had seen it spark twice since waking, and it sparks again where it rests, palm down, on Elinor's stomach. The nurse’s face pinches and she moans, and Anne catches something about eyes and there being too many. Her skin crawls and she needs to convince Cassandra to bring Solas here, to get him to leave Elinor in her dreams alone.

Anne looks to Cassandra, one idea coming to her. “Do you have any spare crochet hooks and maybe some yarn? I can make hats and scarves. Or even extra cloth, needles, and thread for clothes.”

The Seeker frowns at this, thinking. “We may have some.” Her frown hardens. “Why?”

“For one, I don’t know what happened to our packs, our clothes are ruined, and it’s  _ winter _ .” Anne shrugs. “I need to make us something to wear other than pajamas.”

Cassandra makes no movement to get those things, continues to watch Anne. She decides begging as the best course of action. “Seeker Pentaghast,  _ please _ . I need something to do and my other option is managing to wrangle Solas here to ask him to train me.”

Cassandra straightens a little at this, recalling that Anne is a new mage and there are no Circles to teach her anymore. “I will bring you what I can,” the Seeker swears. “And the apostate.”

Anne smiles weakly, ducking her head in deference. “Thank you.”

Adan arrives shortly after, ushering Cassandra out on the grounds Anne needs further rest. Along with him is the nervous elf she recalls from the game, the one who drops the box when the Inquisitor wakes up. She’s carrying a box now, a stack of blankets underneath.

She helps Adan check and clean Anne's bandages and lay Anne back down even as she bitches and moans about not being able to sleep on either side from her injuries. Adan listens to it with little care, but the girl nearly has a nervous breakdown.

Anne falls silent when she realizes how badly she’s upsetting the elf girl.

“Hey.” She says after Adan has administered a sleeping draft, sweet as sugar and thick as maple syrup. It would take a few minutes for it to kick in. She smiles at the elf girl who hesitates to meet her gaze. “I hope you know I don’t bite. Dunno what they’re saying out there, but no need to be scared of me.”

“O-oh, I’ve said the wrong thing, haven’t I?”

“No.” Anne pats the girl’s elbow, a little lazy with the coming sleep. “You didn’t say anything wrong. What’s your name?”

“A-adrielle.”

“Hm.” She huffs, feeling her eyes get heavy. She can see Adan packing everything away in the corner of her eye, taking the blankets Adrielle had carried to cover Elinor and her with. “Nice to meet you, Adrielle. I’m Anne. That’s Elinor. You’re welcome to talk with me or her anytime, okay? Don’t hesitate to come find me.” She tries to keep smiling, but ends up yawning. “You make me think of myself when a little girl.”

Anne ends up falling asleep before Adrielle can answer.

The Fade is… strange. Insofar that Anne had immediately figured out how to build her own little safe haven upon realizing where she was, away from any curious spirits or demons. She had no way to fight off demons yet and figured it was easier to keep them all away in that case.

The little bit of safety she had made for herself was her living room. It held all her books and she could play video games. Most of the time she tried to figure out the timeline of future events and practiced her magic. The latter had ended up very useful as she’d needed it a lot sooner than she’d thought.

Anne is practicing her magic now, focused on figuring out ‘winter magic’ when she feels a knock on her walls, and jumps. The ice bursts and showers down, disappearing. She huffs.

Only spirits knocked. Demons preferred to scratch at the walls, to whisper to her, trying to convince her to let them in.

Anne waves away the lingering magic and stands, heading to the door. “If you’re that Purpose spirit again, I’m not letting you in.”

“I was curious to how you built these walls so quickly.”

Her blood chills in her veins at Solas’s voice. She clenches her hands into fists.

“Lady Cassandra said you were asking for me. I assumed it was for training, as you said you are a new mage.” There is a pause. “Your walls are very strong, not even I have seen such work in all my journeys through the Fade.”

Anne frowns. “I don’t believe you. Come find me in the waking world.”

There is a long, long silence. Then Solas’s voice calls through. “Very well. I doubt your doctor will be pleased since you should be resting.”

Anne huffs. “Tell that to the situation I’m in.”

“Then you should definitely wake up.”

Her eyes snap open, dragged from sleep, reaching blindly for Elinor in the dim lighting. She grabs her friend’s hand and the tension bleeds out of her. She turns her head to gaze at Elinor, still asleep, breathing finally starting to even out.

“I have never seen such unflinching devotion between elf and human before now.”

Anne turns, looking at Solas sat primly on the other bed. She frowns at him, carefully letting go of Elinor's hand.

“I don’t know why that’s so uncommon. There’s plenty of both of us, I’ve seen.”

Solas tilts his head, watching her work on getting herself into a sitting position. Her mind is still foggy with sleep, aches stronger than typical. She gasps for breath as her ribs threaten to go on strike.

“You truly have been raised separate from your Dalish kin and any effects humans have wrought on them.”

Anne stops moving, a bunny caught under a wolf’s paw. Slowly, she turns her gaze to Solas, keeping her face blank. She knows she is standing on thin ice, and her next step will tell whether she successfully get away or drown, caught before she could build a solid backstory to protect them. Her heartbeat ratchets up in fear as she speaks. “You say it as though you weren’t raised Dalish either.”

“No. I found a path early in life that led me far from my Clan.” Solas watches her with the stillness of a predator, cold blue eyes taking in everything from her steady gaze to the slight shake to her shoulders. He softens his eyes, trying to convince her to trust him. “You need not be afraid of me. I may be a mage, but I am no monster.”

Anne snorts, shakes her head. She had such a sharp retort to that, but she wasn’t supposed to know who and what Solas was. So she bites her tongue on that, decides what she will say, and speaks, as halting as she can without being excessive.

“I’m not afraid. Of you, per se. You saved Elinor's life.” She reaches out again, taking Elinor's hand to pull to her lap. She rubs circles in the back of the nurse’s hand, thumb moving slowly, calming her heartbeat down with slow, deep breaths as Adan had advised after she’d woken the first time today. “You had no reason to help her, but you did. She’d be dead. I know it.” Giving Elinor's hand a squeeze, she lets it settle in her lap. “I can’t thank you enough. And here I am, having to ask for more of you.”

She shifts wrongly on the bed and her ribs  _ scream _ . She gasps for breath, pressing a hand where the worst of the pain is, attempting to breath through it. The bed on which Solas sits creaks and she shoots out a hand to stop him, terrified to let him touch her.

“I can remove the pain.” Solas offers, staying where he is.

“No.” Anne rasps, face pinched in agony as she concentrates. “I earned these marks. I’ll keep them.”

“I must insist I relieve the pain.”

She gives him a hard look, demanding, “Why? I understand healing Elinor. She has something you need. Why me?”

He blinks in mild surprise. Then sighs, setting back in his seat. “Because while I may not know you, and you do not know me, I am kind. Any pain I could ease for someone, I would have done.”

Anne swallows. He might have something up his sleeve. Or he may honestly assume she is just a dumb elf, raised with neither Dalish traditions or the beaten down life of a city elf. A child to be taught and molded with the truth of elvenkind and how they came to be.

A bolt of pain that whites her vision lances across her chest from her bruised ribs, making her decision. She carefully puts Elinor's hand back, glancing at Solas. She must look truly pitiful if he’s this willing to heal her. Or that eager to have his first spy in the coming Inquisition.

“Alright.” Anne forces her hand from her ribs, even though it sends another twing of pain through her body.

She carefully moves her legs from the bed, turning to face him, gritting her teeth and wrestling back tears. Solas does not dare come close after she had silently asked him to not touch her. He wouldn’t until she expressly said he could.

“You… can heal me.” Anne manages. “Just please… uhm, don’t touch me.”

A wryness curls at the corner of Solas’s mouth, though she can tell he’s irritated at her distance. “I am afraid that, to understand the extent of your injuries and address the wounds, I must touch you. I promise to keep my hands away from your intimates.”

Her hands curl into fists. She clenches her jaw, shifting her gaze to glare at her lap. Breath ragged, Anne nods.

“I must hear verbal confirmation. You are too hesitant for me to take a nod as answer.”

“Yes.” She’s shocked by how ferocious she sounds, and feels lightning crackling along her hands. She inhales, exhales the magic away. “Yes, you may touch me.”

Anne closes her eyes, surprised by just how terrified she is to let him touch her. Three days ago Anne had every intention of romancing Solas, and now she was stuck in the same universe as him she was scared to death.

The cot Solas was on creaks, and she can hear the legs as he drags it closer. She can feel the closeness of his body from the heat that seems to slough off of his form, the kindness and concern he quietly expresses thanks to her ease at picking up emotions from people.

Anne could not be scared of him. Not when she had Elinor to protect, to help. She wasn’t allowed that feeling, to be wary of an elf that had every intent of killing thousands of people in an effort to bring back a people long gone. She wasn’t allowed to be, in his eyes, unnecessarily scared of him.

So she inhales deeply, lets her fists uncurl, and opens her eyes. Anne lifts her head, meeting Solas eyes. It’s so abrupt she sees him sway a bit back, then lean forward to look at her.

He raises his hands that now glow a faint blue, steadily keeping her gaze. He settles his hands lightly over her stomach. The muscles jump under the touch and its cold, but not unpleasantly so. Like making a snow angel facedown. He carefully moves upward, along her ribcage, brow furrowing as if inspecting something strange, then back down her sides. She shivers when he touches her collarbone, fingertips grazing her shoulders, down the lengths of her arms.

Then he draws back, shifts the cot he sat on back, and kneels. He inspects one leg with those glowing, icy hands, then the other. When he draws back, he’s perplexed, returning to his seat.

“Do I have two hearts?” She asks, a touch sarcastically.

“You were slammed into the wall with enough force to kill a person.” Solas responds, a tad annoyed at her flippancy. He watches her face morph into surprise and then drift into unease. “But you survived with bruised ribs, a few gashes, and a broken ankle. Even after Master Tethras administered you the healing potion, you should have come out much worse.”

“That’s… I feel like that should be good. But it’s not, ain’t it?” She asks.

“I do not know.”

It is quiet for a long time. Unease continues to coil in her belly, wanting to know what her lack of injuries meant in the face of the Conclave being destroyed and them being dumped in Thedas. If either stuck out too much, even as people clearly not from Thedas, she was terrified to know what that could mean for Elinor and her in the long run.

He holds out his hand, drawing her thoughts back. “Adan said the healer who came earlier could not fix the gash and would not touch the others. The gash on your side does hold some dark residual energy that must first disperse, but the rest are easy to handle. If you would give me a moment, I can fix the worst of it.”

Anne allows him to take her forearm in hand, allows him to carefully unwrap the dressing and inspect the sewn shut wound. It was a fine job, but Anne knew the needle hadn’t been disinfected. It was the first thing she’d asked, and left her uncomfortable and worried about infection.

She watches Solas’s hands light up again and her forearm is so cold its hot. She mutters, “Yikes,” and on autopilot tries to pull her arm back. He holds firm, however, and she endures the ache.

It begins to melt away, the heat turning to cold and then shifting to coolness. He moves his hand and the stitches fall into Anne's lap. Solas inspects the slight, upraised scar, a pink two shades darker than her skin. He must find it to his satisfaction because he turns his attention back to her.

“I can heal the bruises on your ribs, but I must unwrap your midsection to reach it.” The unease grows in her, but she obediently moves to lift her shirt, making sure the shirt is snug under her breast. “It will be the same for your ankle.”

“That’s fine.”

Solas is very careful as he unwraps her midsection, using his long arms to avoid touching her more than strictly needed. He takes time to peel back the bandage and inspect the gash on her side, at the salve around the edges to ease the inflammation. He glances at her eyes, then turns back to her midsection.

His hands lay over the top of her ribs, lighting up blue.

Unlike the last time, the touch doesn’t burn. She inhales sharply, tasting frost on her tongue, lungs burning with the chill of winter not found in the closed, shadowed hall of the Chantry building. It feels like breathing during her first snowfall again, nine years ago on her aunt’s and uncle’s porch, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe and polar bear print pajamas bottoms.

Her eyes flutter closed, finding she can breath easier. She can feel as his touch moves down along her ribcage, soothing the pain, taking it away from her with the cool touch of winter. He reaches the bottom of her ribs and is gone. Her lungs are still cold, and when she finally opens her eyes she can see her breath.

Solas is eyeing her, waiting for a reaction. All she can muster is a shy smile.

“You do not seem to have a problem with the cold.” He pauses, thinking, then pulls her left foot into his lap. She drops her shirt, glad to have him away from her midsection. “Though wielding it seems to be an issue.”

Anne flushes in embarrassment. “I’ve only been a mage for three days!”

He removes the splints, setting them by his thigh. “Yes, I did need to speak to you about that. You seem to have a natural affinity for lightning. Surprising as it’s typically harder to learn.”

“Really? Comes second nature to me.”

Anne flinches at the icy touch around her ankle. Solas pauses, as though accessing something, then says, “I can fix the break, but it will be weak for a few more days until I can finish healing it. Make sure to keep your ankle tightly wrapped and do not put too much weight on it.”

She hums in affirmation and he covers her ankle in both hands. Anne jerks at the influx of cold, the bone beneath feeling lit on fire before easing into a smolder. She watches him work, eyes narrowed on her ankle.

“It must be connected to your relationship with Elinor.” Solas speaks without preamble, and Anne must remind herself of the conversation thread. “As the first time you used magic was when the assailant at the Conclave ordered you to be killed, and you brought down lightning to protect her.”

Anne tenses, and she knows he feels the bunching of muscles in her legs. “What do you mean?”

He turns chilling eyes to her, unimpressed. “You are many things, but I have not perceived you to be stupid. Please do not attempt to act as such.”

She swallows, thick enough to hurt. She finds she can’t look away, that unease climbing across her skin and down her spine, leaving her uncomfortable. “I was scared they’d think I did it.”

True, but not the real reason she kept her use of magic before Elinor and hers stroll through the Fade a secret. Anne has no idea why she’s an elf mage here, and she woke up as one  _ before  _ the Breach explosion. It was best to not tell the people able to have her killed the truth of when she came to possess magic.

She can see the annoyance ease from Solas at her soft, choked words. He releases her ankle, moves to redress it. As he works, she keeps her face turned away, ashamed.

“I understand your fear.” Solas offers, when he has finished. She won’t ask about her head injury or bruises. He had implied his magic was low from what healing he had done and she was not greedy. “I hypothesis that the gathering of the Fade at the Conclave and the heightened emotions of what you were witnessing and fear of your companion being killed may have awoken latent magic within you. It allowed you to protect her. And, if you had not, the assailant may be the one able to control the Breach.”

His words ring in the Chantry. Anne's skin crawls. She wonders if it was really Anne's doing that allowed Elinor to take the Anchor. She was sure Elinor would have gotten to it without her, or someone else if there were survivors.

“Without you, I fear Thedas may have been lost. In a way, you saved us too.”

Her head snaps to face him, eyes wide, mouth parted. He looks at her, curiosity and wonder clear.

Her hands curl into fists again.

“I am no savior.” Anne manages. “And I’m sure Elinor would agree.”

“I must politely disagree.”

They stare each other down. His curiosity and wonder is still so clear, edged by an unflinching pride. Her own face must convey how terrifying the idea of being a hero is, must say just how unwelcome the idea of being anything but herself would be, but he actually gives in first. It’s a tiny shock to her system, watching him back off first. But she sits up straighter, smooths her hands over her pants.

Solas stands with a small grunt and sigh. He dusts off his pants.

“Once you are healed to my qualifications,” he begins, “I will begin training you. You seem to have a natural ease with storm magic, and once you grasped the basics of winter magic you began to use it, even while struggling with it.”

“Thank you.” Anne says, before he can say anything else. “And I mean it. I can’t repay you enough.”

Solas turns, and picks up a bundle of cloth Anne hadn’t realized was at his side. She’d mistaken it for a pillow. Instead it was a few yards of a pale blue cotton and another in a violet so dark it was nearly eggplant. He sets them beside her and she realizes there’s a small sewing kit on top. Delight rises in her.

“Keeping her alive is payment enough.”

Solas is at the bed on Elinor's other side when he pauses, turns to her, and asks, “I do not believe I ever received your name.”

Anne had never given him her name. But she knows he heard it said. She smiles at him, already shifting to sit with her legs up on the cot, pulling the cloth into her lap.

“My  _ mamae  _ named me Annaliese, but friends call me Anne.”

He nods his head. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Anne.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

He leaves finally. She sets about measuring Elinor and marking the outlines for a shirt for her in the violet cotton. She could make two different shirts from each if she was careful.

Arm healed, ribs allowing her to breath, Anne sets to work and thinks.


	4. In Which There's A Lot of Crocheting and Storytelling

When Elinor comes to, it’s slowly. There is the distant sound of humming, the crackle of a nearby hearthfire, the low croak of a raven. She sits up as the door creaks open and a young woman with pointed ears comes in. She startles at the sight of Elinor sitting up, dropping the box in her hands with a rattling sound, and gets on her knees. The humming stops. The young woman clasps her hands together and presses her forehead to them, all the way to the floor, as though in prayer. She’s babbling in a thick accent, apologizing about being there. Elinor is still disoriented from waking up, tongue thick and unyielding, but luckily a familiar voice speaks for her.

“Calm down, lethallan.” Elinor turns to see Anne, hair pulled back in a ponytail to reveal ears as long and finely pointed as the girl’s, hazel gaze sad. She can remember what happened before this, but it’s hard to grasp. Hard to understand what is going on. “Get up. She won’t bite.”

“Lady Anne,” and the woman gets up quickly, flustered. She gives a curtsy to Anne. “Forgive me for not knocking. The doctor said to—”

Anne crosses from the seat she had been in, a nearly finished scarf set aside. She kneels to pick up the box even as Lethallan (if that was her name, it had a strange cadence to it that denoted a title) frets.

“I know what Adan has said. It’s why I’m not worried about you coming in and out.” Anne is fully turned away from Elinor now, talking directly to the girl. She notices Anne favors her right side, as though wounded, and remembers the demon throwing Anne into the cliff face, the way she had crumbled to the floor like a marionette with severed strings. The panic and fear and then the clarity to turn and close the Breach as Anne and their team of others had been helping her do. “Go let Cassandra know she’s awake. I’ll bring her along shortly, Adrielle.”

Adrielle bows this time and disappears. Anne stands there, holding the box, then relaxes and turns to Elinor. The swelling on her forehead has gone down, the bruise already turning yellow, but a new bruise mars the right side of Anne's face reaching down her neck and into her shirt, white patches poking out from under the hem of her tunic.

Anne heaves a sigh, looking pained. “I’ve tried to get her to be less scared of us. Doesn’t seem to be working.” She comes over, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You were out for three days.” Anne explains while opening the box to pull out little vials, two red as cherry syrup and one the color of white out. “People were worried you were in a coma. I knew better.”

“You’re hurt.” Elinor frowns, reaching to check the extent of the damage. Anne pulls away, pulling the cork from the vial of white out. “Anne–“

“I’m okay. Take this.”

Elinor takes the vial, knocking it back. It’s bitter, removing whatever cotton-y taste was in her mouth. And then sweet as honeysuckle. It warms her insides and makes her feel invigorated, better than she has in months. “What was that?”

“Dunno.” Anne shrugs, stands and sets aside the box after pocketing the other vials. “The doctor, Adan, has been giving this to you for meals.”

“Huh. Like that gum Violet Beauregarde had without the side effects.”

Anne grins, still wary in a way Elinor didn’t think fit on her friend. “Yeah. Definitely.”

Elinor gets up slowly, finding her legs. Anne helps, grip firm on her friend’s elbows.

“Where are we?”

Anne purses her lips. “Well, I know for a fact we’re in Dragon Age.” Anne leaves Elinor where she is, going to gather up a cloak and bracers and boots, setting the cloak and bracers beside Elinor. Elinor runs a hand over the cotton shirt she was in, the dark violet reminding her of her nurse scrubs, the sewing at the seams rough but tight and sturdy. “It’s the third game. Inquisition.”

“Fuck.” Elinor says, looking to Anne as she unties the boots with quick efficiency. “But you finished it.”

“No. I just started it. I kept stopping at the character creation screen because of options. Emma has finished it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Anne looks utterly devastated when she says it, mouth pressing thin and eyes crinkling in displeasure. Elinor holds out her hands when Anne picks up a bracer to slide over the cotton sleeve, watching her fingers tighten the cords with a deftness born of practice. Elinor's brow furrows, watching her start on the second. “Have you been doing these while I was out?”

“Among other things.” She looks up at Anne, who doesn’t meet her gaze when she speaks. She help Elinor into her boots, making sure the laces in the back are tight but not constricting. “I didn’t have much else to do. Cassandra would come talk to me, but mostly I just, like… sat here. I was worried you’d…”

Anne is still soft in the middle and short, not what people expect when looking at an elf of any kind, be they Tolkien, Dragon Age, or Dark Horse. But her ears are long and sharp, eyes looking just a bit cat-like in the lamplight. She’s changed from her jeans and “I have the Flash on speed dial” shirt, but kept her vest, under it a pale blue tunic synched at the wrists with her own leather bracers, over brown breeches, tucked into soft boots. A beaded necklace hangs around her throat, looking new, her grandmother’s heirloom tucked into the tunic, and when the tunic shifts she can see the patches on Anne go further down, as though there’s more wounds on Anne's body than the ones around her face.

“Did people hurt you?” Elinor demands. “Who hurt you?”

Anne laughs, shakes her head. “No one has hurt me except that Pride demon. My healing is slow going.”

Her face pinches. “There’s magic. Can’t someone heal you?”

“There’s a lot of people here in worse conditions than me. But… yes, someone already did.” Anne assures, working the next boot onto Elinor's other foot, and running through the laces quicker than the first time. “I was much worse before Solas offered to heal me.”

Elinor jerks a little, looking closer at her friend. “The elf mage. The one you don’t like. He’s a bad guy, right? Or anti-hero.”

Anne finally meets Elinor's gaze, nodding. There is fear in her eyes, but hope and a fierce protectiveness brightening the hazel. Elinor rubs her face, taking a moment to breath.

“Okay. So. What are we gonna do then? We need a plan, right?”

“Well…” Anne stares at Elinor. A heavy dread begins to form in her chest, seeing the weariness in her friend’s shoulders, the stress lines becoming more pronounced around her eyes. “It’s more like there’s already a plan, and we have to follow. Game logic, yonow. Unless you wanna make a break for it out the back. There’s no guards to see, I’ve checked. Dunno how far or long we’ll last.”

“Meaning we have to do this. Go see Cassandra.”

“Yeah.” Anne scratches the back of her head. She looks towards the door, then back to Elinor. Elinor waits for Anne to say something else, anything else. She instead shrugs. “I dunno what you want me to say. I’ll give you a rundown of what I know but Cassandra is pretty set on you going to the Chantry immediately.”

“The Chantry, not church, because they don’t have my God or your gods here.”

“Nope. But, I mean, Andraste isn’t that bad.”

“I don’t know who Andraste is!”

Anne nods, making a ‘yeah I forgot that’ face. “She’s like, uh…” Anne shrugs. “I know she’s apparently the bride of their Maker? And she’s really holy. Got set on fire for some reason.”

“That’s helpful, I guess. And horrifying.” Elinor sighs deeply, leaning back on the bed.

“Don’t worry. I gave them a cover story. We were raised in seclusion, so us knowing very little is fine.” Anne gets up to sit on the bed, bumping Elinor gently. “My mom got knocked up with a half-elf baby and was kicked out of her Clan. You’re parents took her in of their own good will and we were raised together. Our parents were killed by bandits when you were 14 and me 13.”

Elinor nods, glad to hear she won’t be pulling bullshit out her ass on the fly. She could work with the backbones of a story, build on it with little dashes and pinches of flavor. And seeing as Anne wasn’t likely to leave her side anytime soon, they could keep their story straight. But….

“My sisters. And neiphlings.” Her throat tightens, tears rising. Her voice comes out strangled, high and sharp, “ _Mom won’t know where I am._ ”

She heaves a dry sob, and then the tears break through. Anne pulls her in, letting her cry against her friend’s shoulder, clinging to her. Anne rubs her shoulders, humming another soothing song, rocking gently. And she murmurs, as gently as she can with a vibranium conviction, “I will get you home.”

They sit for a long time, Elinor crying until she was exhausted. Anne gently puts her at arms length, brushing her hair back from Elinor's face, then smiles softly.

“I was worried you’d keep that bottled up.” Anne says, wiping away tears and leaving cool trails in their wake. She was using a cold spell, easing the redness around Elinor's eyes.

“You should cry too.” Elinor sniffles and Anne waves her off.

“I did that after the Chantry sisters left us alone in the infirmary. You’re the one goin’ in and out of comas like its goin’ outta style.”

Elinor cracks a smile, weak but there. “It is? I hadn’t heard.”

“Oh yeah. Big announcement. Must have missed it in your last coma.”

Elinor laughs this time and she can see Anne preen with pride at getting the reaction, see her eyes glitter with newfound power. Anne gives her a half hug, then gets up. She heads back to her chair, pulling a long coat from where it is thrown over the arm. Anne pulls it on and Elinor realizes it has a hood and no sleeves, pale impressions worked into the dark hide’s edges. She clasps a pale gold buckle, smooths it down, and comes back over.

Anne holds her hand out to Elinor.

Elinor meets her eyes, the light coming from the windows telling her the day was early. She stares at the snowy ground and hillside she can see, knowing it was autumn back home and not dead winter.

Anne notices her looking at the window and says, soft, “You can still run.”

 _You_ , not _we_.

Anne wasn’t coming with if Elinor wanted to leave. She was likely going to play distraction.

“No.” Elinor takes Anne's hand, allows herself to be pulled to her feet. Elinor pulls the cloak over her shoulders in preparation to go outside. “We are doing this. Together.”

Anne grins.

“That’s good. I think she’d would take my head off if I told her you just, like, turned to ash.”

“That’s your _best lie_?”

“Well, yeah. They’d believe me.”

Elinor's brow furrows, finding it hard to believe. But then again Anne has had three days to get into the good graces of these people. Elinor hasn’t.

Good time to start.

She heads for the door, hesitating just a little, suddenly feeling this was all fake and she was dreaming. Maybe she’d been hit in the head by flying jousting material and was in a coma.

Anne takes her hand, grounding her. She inhales deeply.

“Let’s go.”

Elinor opens the door and finds the same village to condemn her is now gathered in reverence, lining a well trodden village path. Many hold their left hand fisted over their heart, soldiers in armor and villagers in worn cotton shirts and leathers alike. Children peak from behind the skirts of their mothers, staring slack-jawed at Elinor and Anne.

She shifts in the doorway, uncomfortable.

“I changed my mind.” Elinor whispers. “I wanna leave.”

“They’ve seen you. Too late.”

Elinor swallows, steps outside. The air isn’t as brisk as three days ago, the sun shining down, though a few heavy clouds float by. She keeps a tight hold on Anne's hand, irrationally terrified her friend would let go and leave her to walk this path alone. But Anne keeps even pace with her, winding through the village, up wide stone steps and around another bend, following the path these villagers made. She can feel Anne's own unease growing as in her ears echoes murmured exaltation, “The Heralds of Andraste!”

“I heard Andraste blessed them both.”

“The Chosens of the Divine.”

The Chantry looks as an old church should, all stonework and steeples, a bell in the highest rafter. Elinor pauses, looking over the women dressed in white and red robes and odd habits, a few men as well. There is less praise here, but it comes through in their low murmurs when they glance at them, acknowledging the possible blessed mortals before them.

“Chancellor Roderick does not side with them, but…”

“It is not our job to question the Divine, sister.”

Elinor begins to push open the doors of the Chantry, is surprised to find it too heavy. Anne helps without a word and the doors open with a long, heavy whine. Inside the lighting is poor, both from low candles and lack of windows.

Stepping inside, there is warmth and the heavy scent of candle smoke, dampened by the thick perfume of melting beeswax. The familiarity gives her a sense of deja vu, inhaling deeply twice.

“You okay?” Anne asks, a furrow to her brow. Her eyes are somehow brighter in the low light, as though lit from within instead of without.

The continued murmurs of a village and church continue behind her. She brings them further in to dim the noise before nodding, managing, “It’s just a lot.”

Anne smiles gently, more of a smirk than likely intended. “It’ll get better. Don’t worry.”

Elinor searches her face, looking for anything other than those five words. But there is nothing to lend further peace and so Elinor heaves another breath, pins her courage to the sticking place, and walks down the long room, passed hundreds of candles lit for departed souls, and to the door with a familiar eye burned into the wood.

Arguing could be heard on the other side of the door, mostly Chancellor Roderick, his voice steadily rising as the voices of Cassandra and Liliana stays unintelligible. Elinor pauses, listening to him and all the vitriol he spewed.

Why were holy men of gods almost always hypocrites?

No wonder this place was so quick to go from demanding she hang to begging she save them.

Elinor opens the door as Anne releases her hand. Her heart jumps in fear but Anne is right behind her as she enters, and the room goes dead quiet. Chancellor Roderick glares at them, motioning from a guard on either side of the door to the pair.

“Chain them! I want them prepared for travel to the capital for trial.”

Unlike on the battlefield, Anne doesn’t move to protect Elinor. She ignores Chancellor Roderick with a dismissive flick of her eyes and a distasteful crinkle of her nose, looking to Cassandra and Leliana even as the soldiers shift uncomfortably, one hesitantly moving to grab Elinor. Elinor looks from the man to Anne in alarm, grabbing Anne's wrist, but before he can come any closer Cassandra speaks.

“Disregard that and leave us.”

Chancellor Roderick turns his ire on Cassandra, allowing the soldiers to leave. The two file out, glancing back at the human and elf. Then the door slams shut and leaves the five alone.

“You walk a dangerous line, Seeker.” He growls as the warrior walks up, eyes hard as flint and jaw tight.

“The Breach is stable but it is still a threat. I will not ignore it.”

Elinor looks to her hand, a swell of panic rising in her. The mark hadn’t sparked since she woke up, but it gives a low pulse when she turns her attention to it. Anne covers it, and Elinor meets her eyes. Anne says nothing but she gets the gist: _Don’t worry_.

It’s hard not to worry, to not let panic take over and control her ideas.

Elinor looks past Anne, meeting Cassandra’s eyes. “We’re still suspects, aren’t we? Even after… after _all that_.”

Anne had never said they were free of suspicion. Only that Solas had healed her and Cassandra had come to talk with Anne. For all Elinor knew, they had every intention to still send them to jail, even if Cassandra had ordered the soldiers to leave them be for right then.

“Yes,” Chancellor Roderick hissed, “you are.”

“No.” Cassandra almost spat back, chaining her anger admirably well. “They _are no_ t.”

Leliana comes over, stance open, but eyes cold. “Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave. Someone Most Holy did not expect.” She stares down the chancellor, adding, “Perhaps they died in the explosion– or have allies that yet live.”

“ _I_ am a suspect?”

 _Well,_ Elinor thought, _that just made him guilty._

If he was free of blame, he shouldn’t be worried of being accused of what amounted to heresy and mass murder. His gods would protect him, if he truly believed in them.

A cold draft drags down her spine and she tugs her coat further around her, careful to keep hold of Anne's hand. She hopes it doesn’t make her look sketchy. She didn’t really know how not to look that way at this point.

“You. And many others.”

“But _not_ the prisoners?”

Cassandra rolls her eyes. Elinor sees it and has to fight hard to keep from grinning. Elinor was quickly realizing this woman wasn’t just some religious warrior lady with the amount of sass packed in that single move. It also said Cassandra had repeated this point before.

“I heard the voices in the temple. The Divine called to them for help. They even attempted to save our Most Holy..”

She feels Anne's hand slacken a little, threatening to fall away. Elinor squeezes and Anne's grip tightens. She turns her head, looking at Anne who looks a little paler than usual, color gone from her ruddy cheeks, shoulders hunched and jaw tight, as though Cassandra’s words hadn’t settled well in her.

Why? Wasn’t it good they both were being dragged into this? That she was getting treated as well as Elinor?

“So their survival– that, that _thing_ on _her_ hand,” he points to Elinor's hand, still held tight in Anne's, “all a coincidence?” He crosses his arms, looking pleased.

And Cassandra shakes her head, tone brooking no argument. “Providence. The Maker sent her to us in our darkest hour.”

And she _knows_ this is her role, knows it because Anne said so, but the idea makes her shake her head. Finds she is holding in a harsh laugh as she asks, dumfounded, “You think I’m your savior? Until a minute ago, I thought you wanted us dead.”

Cassandra’s eyes are sharp, but they ease right after, soft as they were after Elinor had thrown up at the sight of what remained of the Conclave. Her voice is equally soft, and her ability to admit her mistakes is refreshing.

“I was wrong. Perhaps I still am.” And a tiny smirk tugs up her mouth, saying, “I will not, however, pretend you were not exactly what we needed when we needed it.”

“The Breach remains,” Leliana turns to them, done with Chancellor Roderick and his bullshit, “and your Mark is our only hope of closing it.”

“That is _not_ for you to decide!” Chancellor Rederick tries at one more bid of authority, interrupted by Cassandra taking a heavy tome off the shelf behind her, pages clasp in a heavy binding of wooden boards, spine of a dark metal. She slams it onto the table, sneer on her lip, eyes bright with determination. There’s a sun with a eye on the front, matching Leliana’s own symbol nearly perfectly save for the extra dozen rays on the book’s sun.

“You know what this is, Chancellor? A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act.” Elinor pretends to not see Anne fighting a grin, looking very pleased as Cassandra turns to stalk towards Chancellor Roderick, steadily pushing him back with a finger jamming into his chest, cornering him. “As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn. We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or without your approval.”

Anne puts a hand over her mouth to hide her grin as Chancellor Roderick sneers at the two of them, leaving in a huff. Elinor catches him giving a passing mutter, but doesn’t hear it well enough. Anne must because her grin falls, giving the man a look of utter vitriol on his way out the door.

 _Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, prick_ , Elinor thinks, focusing on how Cassandra loses her bravado with Chancellor Roderick’s disappearance. She rubs the back of her head, closing her eyes, looking a bit bashful and even a little ashamed of her reaction. Anne takes a faltering step closer and then pulls up short, squeezing Elinor's almost painfully to remind herself to not speak until they were spoken to.

 _Of course you like the bear warrioress_ , she thinks, nudging Anne's elbow so the elven woman looks at her. She raises her eyebrows and Anne's nostrils flare, saying a thousand words with just that alone. Namely, _Oh. My. Fucking. God, shut up. It’s not that bad_ . One eyebrow drops, thinks, _Oh really_ , and Anne's face turns even redder than normal, yanking her hand away to cover her face. Elinor smirks.

“…With you at our side.”

Elinor jerks her head to face Cassandra and Leliana. The spymaster’s gaze narrows a little, looking between Elinor and the flushed-faced Anne, her hands back at her sides. Then settles on Elinor, the more important of the two.

Okay, shit. Elinor scrambles for an excuse, but Anne beats her to it, asking, ‘What’s the “Inquisition of old’?”

“It preceded the Chantry.” Leliana explains, still watching Elinor. It makes her skin crawl a little, knowing that meant Leliana wanted a crack at her secrets first, either believing Anne or knew she was the better liar out of the two of them. Elinor needed to up her game, in other words. “People who banded together in a world gone mad.”

“After, they laid down their banner and formed the Templar order. But the Templars have lost their way.” The Seeker was almost beseeching in her speech, hopeful they would agree. Totally unaware they already would.

But also there is literally _hundreds_ of years about why this is a shit idea, starting when the Pope said ‘go invade the Middle East and spread Catholicism’. She frowns, unsure, even as Anne already looks ready to agree. Anne may already know all this, but she knew fuck all about what was going on with the human-turned-elf knowing little more. She was covering all her bases here, least they get murdered in their sleep by, like, pissy Dragon-Age-Turks. “This sounds like you want a holy war.”

“We are already at war. You are already involved, it’s mark left upon you both.” The Seeker looks to Anne, the naked want to say yes apparent. “As to whether the war is holy… that depends on what we discover.”

Elinor sighs. She rubs her face, already tired. So tired her bones ached. Anne takes her hand, and Elinor looks at her, as beseeching as Cassandra was. Elinor cracks a smile.

“I don’t know why you feel the need to beg me.” Elinor says. “Your puppy eyes are shit… and you know I’m gonna say yes anyway.” Elinor shrugs, meeting Cassandra’s gaze because Leliana made her uncomfortable. “Fine. We’ll join. You can use the numbers, since the Chantry has pretty much told you to fu— uh, go away and wants us two dead. Or at least Chancellor Roderick does. Sticking around can’t hurt us too badly, right?”

“Nope. Not at all.” Anne agrees, tension bleeding from her shoulders.

“So you will help us fix this before it is too late?” Cassandra prods, wanting sure confirmation, holding out her hand to them. Elinor takes it, shaking, managing a grin. Anne repeats the process, saying softly, “Yes, we will help.”

Cassandra and Leliana end up excusing them after that, encouraging them to explore Haven now that they’re both awake. They agree to look around, Elinor mainly to get away from Leliana and her Soul Seeing Stare that has her worried and freaked out about being realized. Anne's ease before the two women who could definitely kill them with their pinkies alone helps a little, but not enough to have her nearly dragging Anne back out into the cold.

Which she pretty much did anyway because Anne was still limping and it seemed to get worse the longer they spent outside. The elven woman’s mood was also damp, brow furrowing, avoiding anyone who looked at them.

“Anne?” They stop at a bench. “What’s up? You went from Absolute Gay Mess, trademark symbol, to Extreme Emo, trademark symbol, in like three seconds.”

Anne taps her knees with her open palms, looking at all of the reverent villagers and soldiers, making eye contact with a few who clearly didn’t trust them yet. Those people looked away, disappearing into the crowds. “I’ll tell you later, aight? There’s a lot of people here and its private.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Elinor helps Anne up. “We can go back now. You shouldn’t be on your leg anyway.”

Anne's eyes widen. “Wait, you should look around!”

“Eh.” Elinor shrugs, arm around Anne's waist, leaning the young woman into her. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t feel like being out in this weather anyway. I know you did your best, but I need more layers.”

“I can make you something.” Anne mumbles, giving up the argument. “I’m almost done with a scarf. It should match your clothes.”

“Hm, I need a jacket more than a scarf, but thank you.” As Anne always does to her, Elinor squeezes Anne to her, then plants a kiss on her forehead. There’s a flurry of whispers but Elinor ignores that, focusing on getting them back to the log cabin. “I will wear whatever you give me.”

The mage laughs, and they get back to the cabin. It’s mostly well insulated with only a slight draft, likely thanks to some holes in the stacked logs of the place. It looks, though, like someone has been working on packing the drafty bits with what looks like mud or clay. Her eyes swing around to Anne's growing nest of materials and doesn’t find anything incriminating, though she knows this is something she’d know how to do.

Anne gets out of Elinor's hold when the door closes and limps to her chair, dropping down into it with a relieved sigh.

“You should sit on the bed.” Elinor advises, unclasping her cloak to throw over the end of the bed. “I can use the pillows to prop up your leg.”

“I’m fine.” Anne lies, and very convincingly too. She digs her scarf out, finding where she left off, and starts working on it again. “I just stood on it too long. Solas should be able to finish healing it tomorrow.” She frowned a little, brow furrowing. “Avoid being alone with him.”

Elinor's eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “Is he that evil?”

“He’s like, hm. Which Disney villain could I compare him too?” Anne looks up. “Actually, he’s like Jude Law Dumbledore.”

Elinor's nose scrunches, goes to grab the chair in front of the desk, and drags it over. “So he’s a morally gray villain-seen-as-hero? I thought he was this super suave, if dumb, mage who just so happens to be a god.”

“Yeah.” Anne shakes her head, nose scrunching when she fucks up a triple stitch and has to undo her work to fix it. “I already have to hang out with him because he’s the only mage I’ll put up with. Marginally. The rest are former Circle mages and their magic knowledge is, honestly, limited. Also the whole Chantry business is annoying, and he won’t be blathering about the Maker and Andraste. I’d rather he not be digging into us both, looking for information. He finds out we’re from another world, and we know he’s Fen’Harel, we may as well die right now.”

“He couldn’t kill us. He needs us.”

“He needs _you_.” Anne corrects, not an ounce of jealousy present but plenty of guilt. “You have the Anchor, which can close the rifts and Breach, and defeat Corypheus. I happen to be the protagonist’s best friend. I am your competent Ron Stoppable.”

A surprised wheeze of laughter escapes Elinor, grinning. It doesn’t dislodge the fear shoved into her heart at the idea of losing Anne, whether it be by murder at Solas’s hands or that of Corypheus or a third, unspecified evil. She reaches out, fingers closing around Anne's wrist. Anne pauses her work to look up at Elinor, question on her tongue. “I’ll stay away from Solas, so long as you acknowledge that, in this relationship, you are not Ron Stoppable. You are Hermione Granger to my Harry.”

“Luna Lovegood.” Anne barters, prompting Elinor to roll her eyes.

“I would have thought being compared to the brightest witch of her age would work, but I suppose Luna is a better fit.” Anne grins and Elinor leans further in to mess up her friend’s ponytail. Anne yelps, wrenching backwards, and Elinor cackles this time at her shrieky, “ _Elinor Borja!_ ”

Elinor continues to laugh as Anne grumbles, fixing her hair, holding her sides.

Then, of course, she starts crying again. Anne freezes, eyes large like a doe caught in a truck’s floodlights. She puts aside her work to wrap her arms around Elinor, pulling her in. Her fingers grip at Elinor's back, leaning heavily into her. Elinor hides her face in Anne's shoulder, gasping for breath, grasping for calm and finding it wasn’t there.

And, just under her own sobs, she hears Anne's own hitch in breath, feels hot tears dampen her tunic, making it cling to her skin. She grasps Anne back, lets herself anchor her sanity here, away from the implausibility of the world outside. For now, they didn’t need to do anything but focus on themselves, focus on getting under control and getting their bearings.

“I’ll get you home,” Anne rasps between sobs. “We’ll get out of this place.”

Elinor nods, inhaling deeply the smell of sweat and lye soap on Anne, a blend she wouldn’t expect. Her tears begin to subside finally as she breathes, relaxing.

She pulls away, wiping at her eyes, turns away to fix herself. Anne has already wiped away her tears and gone back to crocheting when Elinor turns back to her.

“Alright.” Elinor says, voice faltering a little. As she talks, her tone steadies out, and she thinks about what she must become, a figurehead of power and hope. “I’m ready.”

Anne grins, a tired and rueful things. “You aren’t, but it’s good to act it.”

“I meant, _smartass_ , I’m ready to know what the hell is going on here. You know the most out of the two of us.”

Meeting her eyes is startling, a soul-deep unease present in them. “Well, I know more but… not much. I don’t think. I’m not exactly certain the order everything happens, and more than that I’m not certain if… Nevermind.” She shakes her head, ponytail swaying against her neck. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

Anne looks back to her scarf, lips pursing and nose scrunching as she thought. Adding in her furrowed brow and she looked a bit gremlin like, not helped by the ears. Elinor finds the will to not say as much, waiting for the elven woman to organize her thoughts.

“Alright…. So…. This is what I know—”

Elinor scoots to the edge of her seat, ready to listen.

Anne begins to weave her story, explaining the orb was a Foci, how Fen’Harel—Solas—had woken weak and to a world broken, and needed to gain power, that Corypheus was meant to die unlocking the Foci. She goes on to explain the Herald’s part, the trip to the Hinterlands to gain footholds by helping Mother Giselle, travel to Val Royeaux to declare their intent and the exiting of the Templars from the capital, that Elinor had to choose to side with either the rebel mages or rebel Templars to help seal the Breach. Anne doubles back to explain the mage rebellion the best she can, faltering in places, only sure it had to do with a man named Anders and blowing up the Kirkwall Chantry.

She finishes the scarf as she talks, ties it off and wraps it around Elinor's shoulders. It is heavy wool and a dark brown, matching her bracers and boots. She settles back in her seat, toying with a ball of poorly dyed gray wool. Then she picks up the story, how after Val Royeaux is when Elinor can gather her companions, like Iron Bull and his Chargers on the Storm Coast, Vivienne in Orlais (though Anne was unsure on where Vivienne was), and Sera, Blackwall, and Dorian. Dorian, Anne explains, is a turning point, and you meet him by going to Redcliffe. She clams up then, paling a worrying amount, and is hesitant to explain.

“Take…” Anne starts making something with the gray wool, looping the wool to tie off and start her chain. “Take people you trust with your life. Okay?”

“What happens at Redcliffe?”

Anne stares at her gray chain, unwilling to face Elinor. “Time travel. You go to the future. It’s… I just know it’s horrible, Elinor, and you will be scarred. I’m sorry. I’m…” She chokes on her words, covers her mouth, hunching forward and shuddering. Elinor doesn’t touch her, recognizes this is when Anne needs to be left alone or she’ll lash out. When she comes up for air, she straightens her clothes, lets her tears stay on her cheeks, and goes on, as though she hadn’t nearly broken down.

“You’ll have the mages then. I don’t know what going to the Templars will be like. I doubt it’s any better, if I’m honest.”

Elinor already knew what she would choose, not wanting any of this to be a blindside. Not to mention the mages seem to be in need of more help than the Templars, and magic here didn’t scare her as much as it probably should.

Anne knows that after Redcliffe, Haven is destroyed. That’s as much as she knows, and sighs, sinking backwards into her chair. Anne is making a hat with a two-inch brim, eyeing Elinor's head on occasion. It will likely be very soft and warm, and cover her ears.

“That’s… a lot.” Elinor manages after a long, tense silence. Mostly on Elinor's end. Anne just looks tired.

“Yeah…” Anne begins to close the hat brim, then starts on the body. “I was thinking of betraying you at the end, going to work with Solas.”

“What?” Elinor startles, looking at Anne with large eyes, hurt exploding in her chest. “You literally called him Dumbledore!”

“Yeah.” Anne agrees, and gives a tiny sniff. “I can convince him to trust me. Let me in on his plans and then I’m a mole for the Inquisition. My only stipulation would be he doesn’t hurt you.” She undoes part of a row, adjusts her hold on the hook, and starts again. “It gives me time to find a way to send you home, too, since he’ll definitely have more books on inter-dimensional travel than what’s at Skyhold. Tevinter would be best but I don’t know Latin, and I’m an elf. People they enslave.”

 _You_ rings in Elinor ears, realizing with a dark feeling that Anne has never once said _we_ when talking about going home.

“You don’t plan on going home?” She asks, dropping the subject on Anne wanting to work with Solas to destroy the world, even if under pretense of protecting Elinor and helping the Inquisition. “Why?”

“I plan on going back.” Anne assures, and stops crocheting to look her in the eyes as she says it. “I do. But I need to make sure his ass burns. And the Veil is either fixed or comes down peacefully.”

“Once we stop Corypheus we have no reason to stay!” Elinor argues. “The Anchor will be gone, I fucking hope, and we owe them nothing.”

Anne sighs quietly, looks back down. “Just wait. Soon you’ll be wanting to save them as much as I do.”

“ _Anne_.” Elinor grabs her friend’s hands, stilling them. “For the love of God, please, don’t go work for him or, or _stay here_. I played enough of Origins to know that is a really bad idea. We can find a way home, and both go. If you want to save them that bad when we destroy Corypheus we’ll… I don’t know. Shank Solas in his sleep. No more Dread Wolf to worry about.”

Anne laughs, a barking cackle, but she looks still so sad and resolute. But, thank fucking _Christ_ , she says, “Okay. Fine. I won’t be turncoat for the Inquisition. I’d probably be a shitty spy anyway.”

Elinor sags, leaning over onto Anne. Anne lets her, leaning against her just as much. Elinor breaths harshly, whispering, “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Yeah.” The words sound hollow. “Of course.”

Elinor swallows, and prays Anne hadn’t lied to her.


	5. Moral Fairytales and Time Skips, Ahoy!

Anne and Elinor make their way up to the Chantry, bellies and limbs warm with recently eaten breakfast, following the Seeker and apostate. Solas had healed the last of Anne's injuries and declared he’d begin training her the following morning, citing he wasn’t worried about demonic possession due to her increasingly strong mental walls within the Fade. Cassandra had been present when he’d make the declaration, there to summon them to the Chantry, and her hesitance to leave Anne untrained for so long had waned a little.

They pass one of the postings Cullen had tacked up, declaring the Inquisition reborn and asking for willing and hale recruits. Elinor isn’t paying much mind, focused on getting back inside a warm building, but pauses when Anne grabs and yanks her cloak. She stops, looking back at Anne.

Anne points at Cullen’s posting, keeping one eye trained on Cassandra and Solas. Elinor follows where her friend’s finger is pointing and the blood drains from her face. She grabs Anne's hand to pull her along, but tilts their head closer to whisper, “Tell me that isn’t their alphabet.”

“It is.” Anne mourns. “I was hoping that was just the creators being lazy. Apparently it wasn’t.”

“ _F_ _uck_.” Elinor hisses through her teeth, keeping her expression pleasant so as to not alarm the locals. “This keeps getting better and better. Now we’re illiterate here too.”

“I mean… helps the ‘raised in seclusion’ thing. And I think the Dalish tend to be illiterate, or something. So I wouldn’t have been taught because my mom couldn’t teach me. Maybe yours didn’t know either.”

Elinor squeezes her hand. “Alright. We got this then. I hope.”

Anne squeezes her hand, determinedly keeping herself facing straight ahead. “We do.”

Solas headed left halfway, veering off towards his own little home. Elinor finds herself glad he’s not there, knowing he might pick up on their lies faster than the others. Leliana had to send people to get her answers, Solas had the help of having traveled and attempted to befriend other elves. The knowledge of excommunicating someone, for all they knew, was shared among clans.

They enter the Chantry, ducking passed Cassandra, aiming for the back room where the Inquisition had their war table set up. There are a pair of seats not filled, but Elinor opts to stand and Anne silently follows. Probably a bad sign, but the village _had_ wanted their heads on a spike barely four days ago, and some outside the room still did.

It’s the first time Elinor meets Josephine, dark skinned and pretty in a silken gold and blue ensemble, accent an odd Spanish but not quite. Anne had said she was Antivan, which still didn’t mean much to her except as another place in this weird world. She held a clipboard, candle slowly melting at the top, quill held aloft and waiting to either dictate or create missives. Elinor, thinking on it, wasn’t actually sure what ambassadors did.

Beside the pretty woman is Cullen, the same one to save her from being murdered by a Shade four days previous. He looks a little better after resting, though still tired and a bit junkie-like. Not surprising seeing as Anne had explained he was off of Lyrium, an addictive mana restorative that also happened to be Titan blood. Cullen sat hunched forward, rubbing his jaw, looking over reports. He was handsome, she’d admit, with a five o’clock shadow and short blond hair with a dirt tint that was either natural or because of the whole medieval thing this place had going on. The armor with its feathery ruff helped, too. Wanting to get home ASAP and his addiction neatly put him in a Do Not Touch™ box.

Cassandra stayed near her, Leliana standing back to watch the proceedings. Elinor quickly learned Leliana didn’t speak up unless it was important, making her a voice to heed when it rose above the others.

Cassandra gives the introductions of Cullen and Josephine, even Leliana. She seems a little unsure of how Cassandra introduces her as their spymaster, as though Leliana expected the two to frown upon what Leliana did. If anything, it was an interesting job.

“So… what do you guys need?” Elinor asks when Anne clearly isn’t going to, relegating herself to the background. She sought out her friend’s hand and was given it willingly, fingers loose in hers. With a slight tug, Anne comes close again, shoulder bumping Elinor's and settling quietly against her.

Elinor can’t recall ever needing this much constant touch, this much grounding, in her life. She supposed there was a first for everything and, given the circumstances, it was to be expected. Lucky for her, Anne was better at giving affection than receiving it.

“We are to understand neither of you have training in battle.” Cullen opens with, and looks utterly exhausted at the idea. Neither attempt to deny it. “To be apart of the Inquisition, to stand as symbols of hope, you must learn to defend yourselves. You will be expected to travel to places within Thedas, coming into contact with rogue Mages and Templars, wild animals, bandits and thieves, and–”

“We know what to expect on the roads, Commander.” Anne gently breaches, visage set in a soft way, making her seem weak and easily subdued. Elinor doubted it worked, not with what she’d showed at the Temple, and from what she’s heard of Anne's reaction to them being separated. It seemed to work somewhat, as Cullen pauses, meeting her gaze, and nods warily. “We’re merely used to giving up our valuables and booking it, or avoiding confrontation altogether.”

“Preferably the last.” Elinor admits.

“Yes…” Cullen trails, waving a hand towards Josephine.

“We have settled on a regiment for you,” the ambassador near chirps, smile sweet and eyes hawkish. “Mornings you will come see me to learn about the various peoples and countries over breakfast. Mid-morning to lunch, Lady Elinor, you are to go with Lady Pentaghast and begin practicing the sword as you showed natural proficiency with it. Lady Anne, you shall be with Solas at this time. After lunch, you shall return here for further study. Lady Pentaghast informed me you were raised away from people, and I hope it is not too forward I assume you do not… ah,” Josephine searches for how to word it, and says, “know the alphabet?”

And for whatever fucking reason, despite _just talking about it_ , she opens her mouth and says, “We do.”

Anne gives her a startled look as Elinor wishes to be swallowed by the floor, parroting, “We do?”

Josephine looks between them, eyebrows raised. She doesn’t say a word.

“I, I mean…” Elinor scrambles. “Remember that book we found? We wrote down all the individual letters in it. Made our own alphabet.”

Anne latches onto that. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we know how to _read_ Common. Might be out of order or something. And those squiggles don’t look like what we know.”

She can feel Leliana boring into her face, making her start to sweat despite there being a distinct chill. Heading off a growing argument, or what she thinks to be one, Josephine takes a step around the table and says, “May I ask you write down what you know and construct a sentence? A simple one.”

“Sure.” Elinor shrugs, because what the hell else can she do. Anne still looks mildly alarmed, but takes the paper and quill offered just as Elinor does. She awkwardly writes the alphabet down across the top, because its all she can do, and the others come around to watch them. Anne, the show off, writes, “Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow,” while Elinor chose, “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.”

“That is Tevene.” Cassandra notes, surprised. “But not any form of it I know.”

“No.” Josephine agrees. “It appears you taught yourself to write, and a way to communicate, yes, but not in a way any of us know.” She points to the alphabet on Anne's, more legible because she was weird and knew how to write with a quill. “Luckily for you, there are 26 letters in the Common alphabet as there is the Tevene. We should be able to teach you easily, if not quickly, from there.”

Elinor sighs in relief and Anne covers her eyes, sitting up straighter.

“What did you write, if you do not mind my asking?”

“Uhm,” Elinor smiles weakly. “‘Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs’.”

Cullen presses his fist to his mouth, looking away with a cough that doesn’t conceal his smile or chuckle at all. Cassandra rolls her eyes. The corner of Leliana’s mouth quirks as Josephine fights a grin.

“And you, Lady Anne?”

“‘Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow’.”

“Only because you’re dramatic.” Elinor immediately teases. “That’s so serious.”

“One of us has to be serious at any given time.” Anne points out, grinning widely. “And we know you can’t hold your liquor, so…”

Elinor gasps, mockingly shaking her finger at her threateningly. “Remind me again who got so drunk she stripped to her underwear and climbed a big rock, shouting ‘I’m Queen of the Mountain’?”

“You were the serious one then, and we know I’m a hot drunk.” Anne explains easily, shrugging with hands up in a ‘what can you do’ motion.

There is a polite cough and the two remember where they are. Anne shuts her mouth so fast her teeth clack and Elinor turns pink, the same shade Cullen sported. She meeps, “Whoops.”

“I think I’ll add afternoon writing _and_ evening etiquette lessons.”

* * *

Anne busts through the front door, hair a mess and looking a bit… burnt. Not to say Anne didn’t always come busting through the door, she almost always did after training with Solas, but she never smelled like singed hair and never looked ready to kill a herd of tiny, cute animals.

Elinor frowns at her, hunched over their desk as she painstakingly writes Common, using a stick of coal because the quill made her hand cramp. Anne was teaching her to do that cool curly thing with the quill before bed, easing her transition.

Anne marches past, ripping her hair from the half fallen ponytail and grabbing her comb to begin getting rid of all the singed bits and the dead hair. She grumbles as she goes to her chair she’d turned into crochet and sewing station, “Just because I’m good at lightning doesn’t mean I can use fire, you jackoff.” She throws the clump of dead hair in the fireplace and begins to dig out a dull red infinity scarf.

“How did training go?” Elinor asks, staring at her version of “the quick brown dog jumps over the lazy fox” to what it should be in Common…. sixty times. This was worse than anything Duolingo could churn out.

They’ve lived in Haven nearly two weeks now. Their understanding of Common was coming along slowly, their training was a bit faster, and Anne had made a scarf or belt or mittens for nearly everyone in the Inquisition’s inner circle. Solas got a hat and Elinor was never forgetting his face when Anne told him it was because he looked cold.

They were waiting to hear from the scouts in the Hinterlands about its state of affairs.

Elinor herself seemed to be improving at a pace that pleased Cassandra. And God knows the Seeker wasn’t going easy on her at all.

This morning she was learning to engage in badly instead of just parring and backing up until she could reverse it on her opponent. That only worked so much on people, and not at all on animals or demons.

“I am going to beat his fuckin’ ass one day,” Anne declares. “Wait for my moment, and punch his dumbass face in. Go full Sirius “Don’t touch my godson” Black on him.” She spits something in Elvish, because Solas had seen fit to start teaching her, but Elinor doubts he was teaching her how to cuss. So she picked that up elsewhere. Then she stops glowing from the lightning tingling under her skin and turns around, pulling her hair back up. “Ready to go get lunch?”

“You should change shirts.” Elinor recommends even as her stomach growls. She wanted to practice just a little longer.

“It’s fine. Just some soot. He mostly got my hair. Pulled up a barrier in time.”

Elinor doubted that but acquiesced, setting down her coal to get up and grab her cloak.

They had agreed to have lunch with Varric today, mostly because he promised to give them a rundown of Tale of the Champion and both wanted some version of what the fuck happened at Kirkwall to cause the mage rebellion. The Chantry had their version, but they wanted something closer to the truth.

They leave their cabin, closing up behind them. Anne takes a minute to activate the glyph she’d wheedled out of Solas a few days previous so their cabin stayed locked until one of them returned, then head off down the path to the tavern.

Its crowded with the lunch rush, but not as bad as the evening time when it becomes socially acceptable to drink yourself stupid. Varric has already acquired a table near the back, digging into a soup of some sort and bread. Solas is with him, and Anne's open expression becomes a bit stonier, clearing to a smile a second later.

“Hey, Varric.” Anne calls over the sound of the tavern. “What’s the special today?”

“Ram, taste’s like.” He calls. “Have a seat, I’ll order you some.”

Flissa rushes by a little later, and Elinor manages to flag her down. The innkeeper pauses to take their order before Varric can tell her to put it on his tab and is gone. Varric pretends to pout as Elinor shakes her little coin purse at him, bought after doing a few odd jobs around town to get some money.

“So,” once their food arrives and Elinor has taken a few bites, “you promised us a story.”

“I did.” He agrees, and sets down his spoon. Plants his elbows on the table and gives a little quirk of his mouth. Even Solas can’t hide his curiosity. “How about a trade? You tell me a story, and I tell you one.”

“Oh?” Elinor debates that, thinking about the stories she does know. Quite a few fairy tales, and even more Biblical ones. She casts a glance at Anne who has her spoon dangling out her lips, thinking if the way she wiggles the handle of the utensil is anything to go by. “Seems fair to me. Who do want a story from?”

“How about both of you?” He offers. “Mine is very long and definitely worth two stories, one from each of you.”

Anne nods, puts her spoon in her soup, and says, “Deal. I got one in mind already. Eli?”

Elinor thinks about it. She had been telling Anne about King Solomon when they were at the RenFaire, and never got to finish the story…

“Yeah. I’ll go first.” Elinor clears her throat, figuring out how she wants to word this, and begins,

“Long ago in an ancient kingdom there was a mighty king who ruled. He was known for wise council. Unlike the other kingdoms, he was a devout man and sought the counsel of his God.”

She pauses for dramatic effect, watches Varric lean in a little, sees Anne wiggle in her seat from the corner of her eye, and witnesses the interested concentration in Solas’s eyes.

“They called him Solomon the Wise.”

Varric snorts at the name and Solas raises an eyebrow. Anne has already forgotten all about her food, leaning in to listen.

“Known for his fair council, many would travel far to grace his halls.” Elinor continues, winding up for the story, getting into the flow of it. People were starting to gather as she spoke, interested in what tales the Heralds had to give them, whether they be truth or fiction. “On one such occasion, two women came before him. One carried a babe in her arms and the other was in disarray.”

Keeping with the story, she raises her voice a few pitches, affecting a sad, scared tone, “‘Help me, King Solomon,’ the second woman begged of the wise king. ‘This woman holds my baby!’”

She drops her voice, settling on a convicted tone, mouth pressed tightly as she speaks, “‘She lies, King Solomon! Her baby died and now she seeks to have my baby as hers’, the other women pled.’ Neither appeared to be lying. Yet one was.”

Elinor takes a bite of her bread, chews, and swallows. “King Solomon had listened to each of the women’s stories and the child was too young to know which was her mother and which was not. He knew of only one solution.

“‘If both of you claim the baby,’ he resolved,” and with a smile, Elinor, using her spoon, mimes pulling a sword from a scabbard to a chorus of quiet gasps and Solas’s climbing eyebrows and Varric’s growing smile, “‘then you shall have the baby. I shall split the child into two, and you may be on your way.’

“The woman holding the child began to cry, presenting the baby to the second woman, who rocked back and forth in joy, crying out, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ The first woman begged of him, ‘Please, my King, I shall give up my baby. Do not split her in two.’” Elinor drops her spoon back in her bowl, as though sheathing a blade, and finishes, “The wise king, seeing the truth now, declared she keep the child and ordered the second be removed from the baby’s sight.”

Elinor grinned at the looks on her audiences faces. Anne had clearly enjoyed it, and so had the two before them, and their gathered crowd. But there was an undercurrent of alarm to it, as though unbelieving someone could make such a judgement.

“Where did you hear a story like that?” Varric asks. “Or did you make it on the spot?”

“You learn a lot when traveling,” Elinor easily deflects. “We happened to learn stories, no matter how absurd or arbitrary they might be. The meaning of that one was to reveal the true mother in the form of a concealed emotional test.”

“The test would be the compassion and will of a mother to see her child live, even if not with her, against her desire to keep her baby to herself, even if only half of it.” Solas murmured, marveling a little. “Luckily, the former won out and the true mother could raise her child.”

“And if it hadn’t worked, Solomon the Wise wouldn’t be so wise.” Varric raises his mug of liquor. “Mind if I use that one at any point, Freckles?”

“Sure. I’m sure there’s other variations of it, so do as you like.” Elinor decides to tuck back into her food, knowing they only had so much time before Josephine sent Cassandra after them in an effort to get her students in tip top shape for courtly things. “There’s another version where there’s the mother and a demon acting as a woman and they’re told to stand on opposite sides of a line and take hold of the baby from separate ends, then pull. Whoever got the baby over their side first won, and the mother refused. Solomon, called Buddah in this version, then gave the baby to her and dispelled the demon from the other.”

Varric laughs, but looks a little pale in the light. Elinor doesn’t know why the idea of a demon being involved has him looking ill until she remembers Anne telling her Anders had been a possessed Mage.

And Varric’s friend.

 _Shit_.

Anne, God fucking bless her, saves the very awkward moment by dipping her bread into the bowl, and declaring, “That means I have to take this a whole different direction. Mine has a chase scene and talking animals.”

“Oh?” Elinor can think of a few like that, namely Cinderella, Goldilocks, and The Three Little Pigs. “Which one would that be?”

Anne smirks, rolling her shoulders back as she sits up straight. In the low light of the tavern she looks positively mischievous. Like Elinor, she clears her throat, and begins, voice carrying despite the low tibre she keeps,

“Once upon a time, in a remote village, a woman had finished her baking. She asked her daughter to take some bread and a pot of butter to her grandmother, who lived in a forest cottage. The girl set off and along the way met a bzou.” She pauses, longer and tenser because no one knew what a bzou was, awaiting to see if she’d explain. And, with an uptick of her mouth, she says, “A werewolf.”

A murmur of alarm goes through the crowd, their main companions even turning wary.

“But this bzou was no Blighted creature, instead of sane mind and body. And the bzou stopped the girl to ask, ‘Where are you going? What do you carry?’ To which the girl, very young and not knowing speaking to a bzou was bad luck, responded, ‘I am going to my grandmother’s house. I am bringing her bread and butter.’

‘Which path will you take?’ The bzou questioned further. ‘The Path of Needles or the Path of Pins?’

‘I will take the Path of Pins,’ the girl said.

‘Why then, I shall take the Path of Needles and we’ll see who gets there _first_.’”

She can feel the way the room holds its breath, knows Anne made both a terribly bad and insanely good choice to tell whatever version of Little Red Riding Hood this happened to be. Anne knows too, by the way she catches Elinor's eye and winks at her. Elinor manages to restrain a laugh, and wonders what magic she cast to have the place so focused on them.

“The girl set off, the bzou set off, and the bzou reached Grandmother’s cottage first. He killed the old woman and gobbled her up, flesh, blood, and bone— save a bit of flesh that he put in a dish on the pantry shelf, and save a bit of blood he drained into a small bottle. Then he dressed in the Grandmother’s shawl and cap and climbed into the bed.”

“Oh yikes,” Elinor mutters, knowing where this was going, and gets shushed by Varric for speaking.

Anne does hand motions as she speaks, acting out what happens as she goes, much like Elinor had for hers.

“When the girl arrives, the bzou called out in his best matronly voice, ‘Pull the peg and come in, my child.’

‘Grandmother,’ says the girl, ‘Mother sent me here with bread and butter.’

‘Put them in the pantry, my child.’” Anne pauses, grin growing. “‘Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, I am, Grandmother.’

‘Then cook the meat that you’ll find on the shelf. Are you thirsty?’

‘Yes, I am, Grandmother.’

‘Then drink the bottle of wine you’ll find on the shelf beside it, my child.’

“Maker preserve me,” is said somewhere in the crowd as Varric curses. And is shushed by Elinor in revenge for earlier.

‘As the young girl cooked and ate the meat, a little cat piped up and cried, ‘You are eating the flesh of your grandmother!’

‘Throw your shoe at that noisy cat,’ ordered the bzou, and so she did.

As she drank the wine, a small bird cried, ‘You are drinking the blood of your grandmother!’

‘Throw your other shoe at that noisy bird,’ ordered the bzou, and so she did.”

When she finished her meal, the bzou said, ‘Are you tired from your journey, child? Then take off your clothes, come to bed, and I shall warm you up.’”

Here Anne finally pauses, and Elinor swears the crowd will fight her if she doesn’t finish drinking her water fast enough to satisfy their want to know what happens. Varric leans closer to them, watching the elven woman critically. Solas has gone from polite interest to stone-faced, staring her down. Probably highly disapproving of this tale. Elinor disagreed.

When the Mage had wiped her mouth and cleared her throat to begin again, she turned to tug at Elinor's clothes. Mortified, she let her.

“‘Where shall I put my apron, Grandmother?’” Anne asked her, gaze wickedly teasing. And moves to tug on Elinor's shirt sleeve next.

‘Throw it on the fire, child, for you won’t need it anymore.’

‘Where shall I put my bodice, Grandmother?’

‘Throw it on the fire, for you won’t need it anymore.’

The girl repeats this question for her skirt and her stockings. The bzou gives the same answer, and she throws them on the fire. As she comes to bed, she says to him, ‘Grandmother, how _hairy_ you are!’”

Anne puts her hands on her own cheeks and turns to Solas when she says ‘hairy’, eyes widening in alarm. Varric chokes on air, trying not to laugh and failing miserably. It lightens the mood quite a bit.

‘The better to keep you warm, my child,’

‘Grandmother, what _big arms_ you have!’

‘The better to hold you close, my child.’

‘Grandmother, what big _ears_ you have!’

‘The better to hear you with, my child.’

‘Grandmother, what _sharp teeth_ you have!’

‘The better to _eat you_ with, my child. Now come and lay beside me.’

‘But,’” Anne stalls, as though hesitating, ‘first I must go and relieve myself.’

‘Do it in the bed, my child.’

‘I cannot. I _must_ go outside,’ the girl says cleverly, for now she knows that it’s the bzou who is lying in Grandmother’s bed.

‘Then go outside,’ the bzou agrees with an agitated sigh, ‘but mind that you come back again quick. I’ll tie your ankle with a thread so I’ll know just where you are.’”

It is here Anne picks up Varric’s scarf and passes it to him. He takes it hesitantly, and there is a brief flash of wounded pride on her face, and the realization she maybe did really make a bad choice here. Then she rallies herself, look beseeching, and he takes it so she can finish the tale. After a moment, he even puts the scarf on.

“The bzou ties her ankle with a sturdy thread, but as soon as the girl has gone outside she cuts the thread with her sewing scissors and ties it to a plum tree. The bzou, growing impatient, calls out, ‘What, have you finished yet, my child?’ When there comes no answer, he calls again, ‘Are you watering the grass or feeding the trees?’ No answer. He _leaps_ from bed, follows the thread, and finds her gone.

“The bzou gives chase, and soon the girl can hear him on the path just behind her. She runs and runs until she reaches a river that’s swift and deep. Some laundresses work on the river bank.” She grabs the edges of her own cloak, pulling tightly as she speaks, tone urgent but steady. “‘Please help me cross,’ she begs of them. They spread a sheet over the water, holding tightly to its ends. She crosses the bridge of cloth and soon she’s safe on the other side.

“Now,” Anne slackens her hold on her cloak, “the bzou comes to the river, and he bids the women help him cross. They spread a sheet over the water— but as soon as he is halfway across, the laundresses let go. The bzou falls into the water with a howl and he drowns.”

She doesn’t continue, sitting back, looking satisfied.

“Is there no more?” Solas prompts in the near eerie silence. “No conclusion to whether the girl survives?”

“Depends on what you want.” Anne responds. “The bad guy died and she got away, so I’d say that constitutes a happy ending.”

“Certainly, Crackles, but she…” And Varric pauses at this, unsure. “She ate her grandmother. That has to have consequences.”

“Probably, but it’s also just a story. As far as I know, a werewolf can’t be of sane mind and body. Not for long, anyway. It’s impossible.” Anne sighs as Varric continues to appear uneasy. “Another version has him eat her, and another has a Warden come to save her when she becomes infected from a bite. This one is ambiguous because the entire story is very harsh, and giving it a proper ending would detract from the meaning.”

Solas pushes her, asking, “Which would be…?”

Anne rolls her eyes. “Alright, this one is pretty simple; Don’t speak to strangers, particularly ones who are clearly shady as fuck. The version where she’s killed and eaten is a loss of innocence, sexually and mentally, because grandmothers are a symbol of maidenhood and safety. The one where she is infected and saved is the same as this one, because the entire point is to teach you to be wary of the world and its offers, whether they be kind gestures or not. The sweetest tongue hides the sharpest tooth.”

“Oh ho.” Varric chortles. “That is a good one, Crackle.”

“You’re welcome to it.” Anne offers, and Elinor thinks of the poem the woman found it in. Maybe she’d recite it for them one day.

Elinor lifts her bowl to her mouth, tilting her head back to chug the last of the broth. She sets it down, wipes at her mouth. “Alright, Varric. You owe us a story, and we’ve paid our dues.”

And on cue the door to the Singing Maiden busts open, and Cassandra stands imposingly in the doorway, hands on hips, casting a long shadow everyone avoids. Both women whip around in sync to stare at her, wide-eyed. Then Anne whispers “oh. _Shit_.” and ducks under the table, startling Solas and Varric, the former jerking away from his trainee scuttling past him.

“Don’t you leave me!” Elinor angrily hisses at her as the Seeker notices her, starting her march over. Elinor grabs blindly for the fleeing Elven mage but comes up empty handed. “You mother _fucker_! Get back he—eeey Cassandra!”

The Seeker towers over them, looking over a giddy Varric, bemused Solas, and empty seat complete with empty bowl and cup. She scowls at the items, and after a brief pause, runs her hand over the space Anne should be in. Varric nearly spits his drink out and Cassandra turns her eyes on him. He’s full-on grinning, showing teeth, likely completely aware of where Anne has scurried off to.

“Lady Anne was here when I entered. Where has she gone?”

“Elsewhere,” is Elinor's knee jerk reaction, picked up from the missing Elf in question. She wants to smack her in the back of the head. And, because she’s just that petty and knows Anne so well, she raises her voice above the din to call, “I think Anne's scared of you, Cassandra.”

“I am no- _OW. FUCK NUTS_.”

The table jolts when Anne's head hits it and the Seeker bends to look at the hiding mage. Elinor follows, watching her friend rub her head, curled up on Solas’s otherside in as tiny a ball she can get. Anne glares at Elinor, then does a truly terrible pout.

Cassandra makes a noise of utter disgust and Anne wilts like a fucking flower in 105 degree weather. Elinor cannot believe her.

“You were going to leave me to her mercy!” Elinor accused as Anne crawls out from under the table. “That’s so rude!”

“You could have joined me. Varric knows to not rat us out.”

“I will just look under every table from now own.” Cassandra responds, look of disapproval making Anne wilt further. “You are late.”

“Varric was about to tell us the Tale of the Champion!” Elinor defends, hoping it would do its job on the Seeker. She apparently liked romance novels, and Elinor was sure this fit the criteria. “We wanted to know what happened!”

Cassandra hesitates a little at that, then steels her resolve. She points at the door and they start their march for the Chantry, heads hung. “You will be able to read it like the rest of us upon becoming proficient enough in your studies.”

“Have a great time!” Varric calls, definitely laughing at them.

Anne grumbles in Esperanto under her breath and Cassandra asks, “Yes, Lady Anne?”

“Great to know you take our learning so seriously!” She huffs.

Elinor nudges her. “Please don’t piss her off again. She puts me through the ringer every time.”

“I did that _once_. And they were asking who I believed in.” Anne shrugs. “And you were playing ring-around-the-rosie too. Don’t deny it.”

“Not to the point Cullen looked ready to impale himself on his own sword.”

“They didn’t keep pestering you.” Anne points out, lips pursed. “I’m the elf mage. If it’s not the Maker all day, every day I may as well make my own gallows.”

“That is not why we inquired to your religious affiliation.” Cassandra sighs at the dour woman’s tone.

“Then why is it so important?” Elinor wonders, more than a little curious they couldn’t just leave it at Elinor and Anne worshiping different religions, what it may be not mattering. “What we believe is likely—”

Anne shoots her a Look™ reserved for when Elinor started to stray into territory that needed to be left alone. Elinor quickly backtracks, adding, “Mom and Dad weren’t super religious,” _hah!_ , “and it’s never interested me.”

What a crock of bullshit. Oh well.

“So you have said. We want to know so as to understand you better.” Cassandra sighs. “And if the matter is lack of religion, we may be able to show you the warm light of Andraste yet.”

“I doubt that.” Elinor murmurs, and turns her eyes from Cassandra’s frown to the Chantry. It was easy to mistake it for a church until you noticed the banner of the Inquisition. And then you remembered where you were and Elinor's mood would drop a little.

Anne promised to get them home, though, and she knew it would happen.

She hadn’t broken a promise to Elinor yet.

* * *

Anne rubs at her eyes, yawning. She hadn’t slept much the night before, too wired and worried. She didn’t know when they’d leave for the Hinterlands to get Mother Giselle, didn’t know if they even would thanks to their inexperience in battle.

“Lady Anne?”

Anne turns her attention to Josie. “Yes?”

The diplomat’s gaze stays steady as she looks her over. Then she asks, sweetly, “Could you repeat what I said?”

Shit. Her eyes dart to her notes, haphazardly written partly in English and partly in Common. She had been writing down everything Josie said on autopilot. “Yeah the uh. Second Sin. Seven Tevinter Magisters, convinced by the Old Gods, entered the Golden City after slaughtering their slaves, my people most likely since Tevinter likes elven slaves,” and wow she was already viewing herself as an elf instead of human-turned-elf, which was wild and a bit worrisome, “in… –395 Ancient. They turned the city black with their sin, were turned into Darkspawn and cast out by the Maker, and caused the first Blight, and the Maker left Thedas until the people made themselves worthy again.”

Elinor wasn’t there that morning, dragged off by Cassandra because she’d skipped training yesterday to watch Solas beat Anne's ass. That also meant she has Josie’s full attention.

“You seem skeptical of this information.”

Anne was getting a bit tired of being poked at. And she could have sworn she was better at this whole acting thing than she seemed to be.

“I’m not.” Anne lies, moving the feather of her quill over her hand. “I’m just a bit curious to how well this held up. It’s a long time between then and now, languages change over time, and Thedas isn’t known for its _viva voce_.”

“ _Viva voce_?”

Oh goddammit why did she have a loose tongue when tired.

“ _Viva voce_ — living voice, word of mouth, oral tradition. It’s Tevene. Picked it up when we got near there a bit ago.” Anne scratches behind her ear and reminds herself she needed to bathe tonight. Her scalp was getting itchy. “It’s the act of an elder repeating bits of story to a person over and over until they have the entire story memorized, and when that person becomes old they repeat the process. Some write it into the skin with a finger, to help them memorize the story. It can take days to months depending on the length of the story, but almost no one does it now. Not even the Dalish.”

Josie looked contemplative at the information. After a long moment she asks, “Is that how you both have so many stories memorized? By _viva voce_?”

Anne laughs. “No. I was never so lucky to meet someone like that. We learned from liking the story. We may get parts of it wrong, but we try to stay truthful.”

Josie nods. She leans over, tapping Anne's paper. “Try taking your notes in mostly Common today. The better you do, the less time you spend with me this afternoon. Let’s say… hm, five minutes for every full line?”

Anne grins, showing teeth, and Josie returns the smile. “I take that challenge, Josephine.”

24 lines in Common so she got to skip writing class and maybe get a nap? Hell yeah. Bring it.

Josie smiles back. “We’ll see how you do. Five minutes a line, not including your previous ones.”

Anne wasn’t a Jedi Master note taker like Elinor, screw all those college years needed for that. But she was a Jedi Knight, at least. She had this.

At the end, Anne had 23 lines. Josie laughed when Anne explained she forgot what Z was in Common, and had to write ‘zip’ in Tevene. And, bless Josie, she said Anne could come in at the end right before etiquette lessons started.

For the third week in Thedas since the Breach fiasco, Anne thinks she was doing pretty good.

When they finish for the day, Anne packs up her things to leave Josie’s office. She’s at the door when Josie calls her back.

Anne turns, waiting to find out what Josie needs. The diplomat pauses, look soft. “If you have trouble sleeping, I am sure Adan has a potion you could use. I am to understand you are not used to being in one place so long.”

“Uh, yeah.” Anne rubs at her neck, smiles awkwardly back. “Thank you, Josephine.”

“Of course, Herald.”

Anne holds in her cringe at the title and slips away, heading down the path to the cabin. She was intent on getting that nap, knowing the chance of Solas being asleep when she was happened to be very slim.

“Lady Herald! I would like to speak with you.”

And speak of the wolf… what was her luck to be found by those she was hiding from three days in a row? Cassandra two days in a row, and now Solas.

She rounds to walk to him even as he closes the last of the space, smile fixed onto her face. “Hi, Solas. What d’ya need?”

“The story you told the other day, of the ‘bzou’ and girl.” He places his hands at the small of his back, appearing somewhat earnest. “Where did you hear it? I wanted to look into it but found myself with nowhere to start.”

“I heard it in…” Anne furrows her brows, thinking. Where could she hear it and it be too far for him to confirm? Antiva was a good idea. “Oh, jeez, I believe we were in Antiva? A very small village, so it may be a localized legend.”

“Antiva? You’ve traveled that far?”

Anne knows immediately what he’s doing, or she hopes she does. She keeps smiling, nods, leads him toward a nearby bench. She sits and stretches her arms above her head until her back pops. “Yeah. I didn’t like the heat much, but then again I’ve always liked the cold better.”

“Which explains why you dress in so little.” He observes, tone a tad reproachful.

“Exactly why.” Anne sits up straighter, pats away any dirt on her pants. “Though that is none of your business, I’d like to very pointedly add.”

He tilts his head in a differential way. “Of course. I merely—”

“Merely meant to suggest something rude, I imagine.” Anne breaks in, and watches a small knot work its way into the space between his eyebrows. “I know you mean well, but this is my body. I dress it how I see fit, especially in hot weather.” She shrugs. “If you have a problem with it, kindly keep it to yourself.”

“I certainly shall.” He agrees, terse.

Anne still wants to go back to the cabin. Now more than ever. She moves to stand, fixing her vest. “If that’s all, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ah–”

Anne knows the face she makes is terrible. She’s glad he can’t see it. Anne takes a shallow breath, turns on heel to face him, and asks, “Yes?”

“Have you ever been to Tevinter?”

She blinks, surprised at the question. “No.” Then, unable to help herself, she adds, “Why?”

“Hm.” He stands as well, gently brushing away any dirt that must have accumulated as he sat. “Merely a curious observation. Some of the things the Lady Herald and you say are Tevene in nature.”

“I’m surprised you know any Tevene.” Anne begins to walk, and he follows, a wolf with a scent. “They’re not known for liking us outside of chains, after all.”

“‘Us’?” The confusion sparks her ire, knowing what’s coming. “Oh!” There it is, the prick. “You mean _elves_.”

He says it like someone says ‘that’s _shit_ you’re standing in’ and she nearly punches his face in. Apparently being given magical powers and pointy ears made her more eager to respond to her violent tendencies. It may also stem from not being the first time Solas has said that to her.

Instead she stops walking, and he falters to stop in time to keep even with her. She crosses her arms. “You do that every time.”

“Pardon?”

“Don’t act stupid, it’s unbecoming of you.” She half-snarls, and knows several people are watching now. The elven Herald always kept her temper in check, always smiled and asked to help where she could, liked to look after the Elven kids so parents could work without worry. She must look something mad to have people stopping and staring. “Every time I rope us into the same category, as Elven people, you get all stuffy. Either you have an issue with my father being human, or you have an issue with being related to us common folk, whether Dalish, city raised, or other. With how much you go on about Elvhenan and the past, its truly shocking how much you dislike your lathallin.”

Solas blinks, seemingly surprised she’s speaking her mind, and so openly. So she takes a step closer and adds, with an upturn of her nose that would have Elinor, Emma, and Lizzy crowing in delight, “You must think pretty highly of yourself, considering none of us are the pretty, immortal Elvhen of the past. We should be supporting each other and helping each other, not distancing ourselves because of something as dumb as titles. _Unless_ ,” her voice drops so only he hears, “you have something to tell me.”

She weaves past him before he can retort, leaving him speechless and an angry red high on his cheeks. Anne gives a little flick of her wrist in a goodbye wave.

Now for that nap.

* * *

“Wait, we’re switching?” Anne blinks at a dour Cassandra and neutral Solas. Elinor looks aghast and a bit terrified at the prospect of being taught to fight by someone with magic instead of a sword. “Why?”

“We believe you are coming along well in combat with those of your respective abilities.” Solas explains. “And as such it would be a good time to start training you to counter those of a different class. In your case, Lady Anne, Cassandra was the obvious option. For Lady Elinor, I was also the clear choice.”

“How am I supposed to learn to fight you if I don’t have magic?” Elinor asks.

“Do not worry,” Solas soothes, and it’s actually pretty damn effective. “We merely wish to make sure you are able to hold your own against enemies that may be of a different training than you. Lady Elinor, you are proficient enough in close quarter combat to appease Cassandra on the field. She wishes to be sure the same can be said of you fighting someone better suited to magic or distanced fighting.”

“Yes.” Cassandra agrees, though it looks like she’s having her nails plucked out by saying it. “And I understand you, Lady Anne, have come to meet Solas’s requirements for battle. Were you to end up face to face with a rogue Templar, you may not have your magic at hand. I want to make sure you will come out of your first battle, and those after, alive.”

Anne bit her lip, sharing a look with Elinor. She couldn’t leave her friend alone with Solas. She also shouldn’t be alone with Cassandra. Despite being very un-Anne's type she still had a very persistent crush.

She glances aside, thinking harder. _Though_ , she wonders hopefully, _having my ass thrown around and thoroughly thrashed might fix that… hm._

Elinor grabs her hand, squeezing so hard her bones ached. Anne looks back, sees the assurance clearly there.

_I’ve got this. Trust me. I can do it._

Anne had full faith she could. But still. The idea, the _worry_.

She fought the itch to chew at the inside of her cheek, an itch becoming steadily stronger the more stressed she got. She smiles weakly, nods.

“We plan to work together this morning,” Cassandra starts, watching them carefully. “Tomorrow, we will work separately.”

“That is–”

Whatever Solas is going to say is cut off and Anne is really enjoying this Cut Solas Off streak going on. A scout is running for them, waving a hand, shouting, “Lady Heralds! Seeker Pentaghast!”

They are pretty far out, positioned in a clearing because Anne's fire was pretty volatile. She feels a little bad for the scout, who comes to a staggering stop, wheezing. He must have run the whole way here and looks pretty ill-fitted to his uniform, which he shouldn’t be because she’d started gathering requisition ingredients for Threnn and been aiding Harritt with similar requests.

Anne really liked fetch quests and was a completion, so sue her.

When he stands back up, she notices his ears and knows it’s definitely Threnn not looking after everyone. No matter, a quick word with Harritt and it could be fixed after an exchange of money (and maybe another druffalo hide. God, she hated those persistent fuckers).

“Hey!” She moved to grab his shoulder and steady him. “What’s the problem?”

“You are,” he gasps, “needed at the Chantry immediately. The Nightingale requests you.”

Anne's eyebrows shoot up and Elinor comes closer, incredulous, “Leliana needs us?”

He nods quickly. “Yes, ma’am. At once.”

Cassandra is already striding back the way they’d all come. “Then we must not delay.”

Elinor makes haste to follow the Seeker, Solas trailing much slower. Anne lags, making sure the scout has his breath back before ushering him to come with.

“Lady Herald,” he stutters, “I should be getting back.”

“Eventually, yeah.” Anne agrees, and feels for her little pocket of coin. Satisfied to find she had brought it with, she keeps talking. “Wait outside the Chantry for me, okay? I’ll take you to have Harritt fix your armor. I can’t stand by and let you work in ill-fitted clothing. You could end up hurt worse than you should be.”

“But, ma’am, Lady Herald, I couldn’t possibly—”

“You can and will.” Anne shakes her head. “And I’ll talk to Threnn about her assigning of items. You’re not the first I’ve noticed being given the wrong set of armor.”

“I’ll grow into it.” He weakly protests.

“You and I both know you won’t.” She chuckles. “If anyone asks why you’re at the Chantry, tell them the Heralds needed your help for something. I’ll tell Commander Cullen I’ve commandeered you for the rest of the day.”

He looks completely flabbergasted and a little pink in the cheeks that isn’t from exertion. He bows to her. “Th-thank you.”

“No problem. You’re name?”

“Alros, ma’am.”

Anne hums as they come to the gates of Haven. “Nice name. Be proud of it.”

They reach the Chantry in short order and Alros is quiet the entire time. He moves to wait at the side, a little nervous, but a little settled too. The armor is so badly suited to him and she hopes Harritt can fix it.

Solas slows to walk with her. “You seemed very concerned for him.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Anne picks up the pace, hoping he gets the message, as they move to enter the building. “He needs help and I doubt anyone else in a position of power will do it.” Her hair is feeling loose in her ponytail so she undoes the strip of leather, begins to work on pulling it back up. “Elinor would, but she hasn’t noticed what’s going on with Threnn yet.”

“You could make her aware.”

“She will on her own eventually.” Anne responds, redoing the buttons on her vest now that there’s no incoming work out. “I’m not her mom.”

“You certainly seem intent to act as such.”

She bristles at that, it hitting something very angry in her that she keeps buckled down. Anne stops walking to face him, demanding, “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

There’s a bit of satisfaction at the corner of his mouth. Payback for her assumptions yesterday, that she knew weren’t that far off. “I merely meant to suggest you spend less time protecting your fellow Herald or those around you and instead more on your own person.”

“You use that word ‘merely’ a lot with me.. I’m not stupid.” She spits. “And that wasn’t _merely_ what you were suggesting. You wanted a rise out of me. Well, you fucking got it.”

Her skin tingles like it does before casting, she takes a deep breath and it immediately abates. He wouldn’t get her that riled so easily.

She points at him, knows Elinor and Cassandra are watching them, one wide-eyed and the other with arms crossed in disapproval but not going to stop them.

“You can get off your fucking high horse, Solas. I don’t give a shit what you’ve seen in the Fade if this is what it’ll make me like when I’m old and gray.” She continues, and watches the satisfaction on his face crumble. _Good_ , she thinks. She wanted an ally out of him, but not at her expense. “I will continue to train under you, and Eli will too, but every time you act like a dick from now on I will call you out on it. I’m already putting up with Threnn’s racism. I won’t put up with your classism.”

Anne's pokes his chest, demands, “Get it?”

Solas’s jaw locks up stubbornly, twitches. Anne stares him down. The tension in his jaw eases and he says, as though about to have his foot chopped off, “Yes.”

“Fuckin’. Good.” She steps back. “You’re not welcome in this meeting anymore. Go away.”

She turns, marching toward the war room with a gait able to scare the Winter Soldier. Elinor glances between the two elves before racing after Anne, grabbing her by the wrist and leaning close to whisper, “Why didn’t you tell me about Threnn?”

Oh fucking Christ tap dancing on a wheat ritz cracker. Anne realizes right then he’d intentionally pissed her off for this. Maybe to also see how far he could push her, but mainly so she’d reveal Threnn was a racist asshole since no one would listen to Solas if he said something.

“Because it isn’t important. She gets away with it with other elves more than me. I’ve got a title. The rest are the ‘help’.” She snorts. “They’re treated little better than slaves.”

“Anne…” Elinor trails, a warning to not speak about something they shouldn’t know and in sorrow.

“Don’t worry. I’ve been looking after us. Er, them.”

Elinor gives her a look that meant they’d talk more later before opening the door. Anne and Cassandra pass through first, Elinor closing the door tightly behind them. Anne refuses to look at the Seeker, aware she heard the entirety of both conversations. It was also nothing for the warrior to be concerned with unless Anne decided to make it her concern.

Leliana, Cullen, and Josie are gathered around the table. Cullen and Josie share similar looks of unease but Leliana is as aloof as a cat.

“You wanted to speak with us?” Anne asks.

“Yes.” Leliana begins. “We received word from Mother Giselle in the Hinterlands near Redcliffe.”

Anne forces herself to not jerk forward, to not take a deep breath. To keep calm. Elinor doesn’t need to pretend, the confusion clear.

“Mother Giselle?” Elinor asks, coming closer to the war table. Her hands rest lightly against the lip, finger grazing the dark wood. The mark on her hand makes it glow eerily. “She’s apart of the Chantry?”

“Yes.” Josephine explains. “She wishes to speak with the both of you. She may be a chance to get some support within the Chantry.”

“She is not far,” Leliana encourages, “and knows those involved far better than I. Her assistance could be invaluable.”

It _is_ invaluable. It was a key point in the games. Everyone who played went to Mother Giselle, secured the Hinterlands, and brought her to Haven. Not doing so wasn’t an option.

“Then let’s do it.” Anne agrees immediately, looking to Elinor.

The nurse looks back, nodding. She looks over the map, carefully translating the text to find Redcliffe. She taps the name, looking over the terrain and memorizing it the best she could. A little blip of pride tugs at Anne. “If she’s as important as you think, she’s one step closer to being able to get the rebel mages to side with our cause.”

Cullen pulls a face, still steadily campaigning for using the rebel Templars. Anne didn’t think they were a good idea, even if she didn’t have magic. They encouraged the fear of magic instead of understanding, allowed peoples fear to twist them.

But if Elinor changed her mind and chose the Templars, Anne could only try and change it back. They had to show a united front, at least until Elinor became Inquisitor, and that put any arguing behind heavy, closed doors.

Cullen sighs then, tapping the hilt of his sword like she sometimes tapped her foot. Nervously, like needing to get something out. “If you could, look for opportunities to expand the influence of the Inquisition while there.”

“We also need agents,” Josie agrees. “We need to extend our reach beyond this valley. And you are better suited than anyone to recruit them.”

Cassandra looks around the room. Nods at those gathered. “It is settled. We shall at noon tomorrow.”

Anne could feel her magic itching under skin, like when sound and light and people began to feel like too much. But pleasantly. The wary look Cullen sends her says he can feel her magic too. But she can’t help her excitement, to finally be getting somewhere, to finally be _doing_ something.

Anne comes to stand by Elinor, shoulders touching, looking over the war table. It was a whole world they’d have to traverse, and the farthest Elinor has gone was the Eastern Seaboard. Anne has only ever gone to Germany and Amsterdam. In the grand scheme of things, it was barely farther than Elinor.

“We can do this.” Elinor whispers.

Anne isn’t sure who she says it too, but she agrees.

They can do this.


End file.
